<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">What's the point?<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Fon is a parasitic money generating business. It presents 2 problems:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>1) Density. Only people who live right next to each other have the possibility of sharing internet through Fon. Most people live too far away. Even if they didn't. The likelihood of someone else putting up a fon hotspot that I could use is close to zero.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>2) Even if (1) weren't the case, the vast majority of people aren't going to bother putting this up. Now, they could pay fon for access to hotspots, but that discourages the creation of new hotspots. In economic terms, this is an unstable equilibrium. As more people want to get access, they pay for it or ignore the system completely. This doesn't cause the growth of the fon installed base so there's no positive reason why I as an entrant should want to create a "Linus" type node. Instead, it causes me to put up a "Bill" type node, but as more appear, I make less and less. So I have little reason to keep my fon hotspot online, which drives down the installed base of "Bills", and puts even more negative pressure on me establishing a "Linus" node.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Frankly, Fon needs a critical mass in order to be even close to successful. Until then, they're just going to try to make as much money as they can.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>For Wifidog, what's the big drive to create a "consumer" and a "business" version? If you are a consumer, you learn about this and do it yourself. If you are a business, and you want to hire someone to do it for you, you hire a consultant to install it. Billing is such a headache and expensive to operate, that you'd have to have significant usage if you were to profitably invest in this.<BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 10px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 10px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>Dana Spiegel</DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-style-span"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000">Executive</FONT><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Director</SPAN></DIV><DIV>NYCwireless</DIV><DIV><A href="mailto:dana@NYCwireless.net">dana@NYCwireless.net</A></DIV><DIV>www.NYCwireless.net</DIV><DIV>+1 917 402 0422</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><DIV>Read the Wireless Community blog: <A href="http://www.wirelesscommunity.info">http://www.wirelesscommunity.info</A></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Feb 5, 2006, at 3:24 PM, Michael Lenczner wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I really think we should talk seriously about having two firmwares</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">which people can download and install by themselves.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>two different</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">kinds - one for a residential network and one for public hotspots.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I know that there are lots of reasons *not* to do this, but we need to</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">look at the reasons why we should as well.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/a-dream-come-true.html">http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/a-dream-come-true.html</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">WiFiDog mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:WiFiDog@listes.ilesansfil.org">WiFiDog@listes.ilesansfil.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://listes.ilesansfil.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wifidog">http://listes.ilesansfil.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wifidog</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>