FON shared wireless broadband - exactly what's in it for the sharers?

[Bob Crabtree]

You may not yet have heard of FON but this self-proclaimed "largest WiFi community in the world" is likely to gain huge visibility (and generate a lot of opposition from some ISPs) with its tempting proposition to share your broadband connection wirelessly and either gain free wireless internet connection worldwide or payment for doing so.

Would-be sharers (FONeros in FON-speak) who don't already have a broadband wireless router suitable for accepting FON's dedicated firmware can still join in and at virtually no cost - FON is offering routers at a knock-down subsidised price of just €5 or US$5 (excluding shipping and VAT).

Find out more in this HEXUS.headline and let us know here if you think FON is a super-smart idea whose time has come or whether it's possibly just a way to flog off a massive job-lot of routers.

[Bob Crabtree]

UPDATE

We spotted one error in our original story and have now corrected that.

We had wrongly assumed that the constantly-updating figure on FON's home page showed the total number of FON wireless access points but have now realised that this figure is for all three types of FON member.

We checked the map page a few minutes ago (at roughly 22:45) and, from figures shown there, came up with a total of 35,022 FON access points.