Today I went to HiTec which is part of Kowloon Bay in Hong Kong where the famous car exhibition is held. Much to my surprise I have found inside the Mall the FON WiFi Signal! I was able to access e-mail and so on without much difficulties, I enjoyed the experience. For those of you who don’t know, this was the location of the former old airport and is now an exhibition center for special events.

I purchased the Smartone Vodafone Mobile Broadband as it appeared to offer much promise of a truly mobile broadband, excited I started using the service. Check out the data points here.

I purchased umlimited and also understood that I couldn’t torrent or use with an peer-to-peer file sharing arrangement, the terms of service are described here. Ok I get it, don’t abuse the network with a lot of downloads, the network can’t handle it. Fine, I only use it for e-mail and web browsing.

Perhaps the fine print that I should have paid more attention to was this:

SmarTone-Vodafone has the absolute discretion to forthwithlimit your data throughput or amount of your data transferred, or suspend/terminate the Service without notice, upon the occurrence of any one or more of the circumstances specified above.

The service was working fine, I wasn’t getting the promised 3.6Mbps but I was getting good speeds of around 1Mbps, but then I hit 400 megabytes of usage (I have an unlimited plan) and I got the below, 50bps speeds

and this too…4.7 kbps, the service basically became completely useless to me. I could not access the Internet with any reasonable speed, I can browse but I could not send out any e-mails that had attachments that were around the 250K size, nevermind sending out 5 megabyte powerpoints, forget that. Essentially in an attempt to provide all-you-can-eat bandwidth, they have compromised the service quality and are proclaiming that the future is HSDPA? Not like this guys, either the people who developed this system don’t understand that people use the Internet in vastly different ways or they are just hoping that people won’t be using more than 400 Megabytes a month? You have got to be kidding me, in this case I have only sent e-mails, how many e-mails with powerpoints do you receive in a month? How big are those powerpoints, let’s say they are 5 megabytes, that’s 80 powerpoints in a month, or 2.6 powerpoints a day. I don’t know about you, but in any corporate environment I have attachments flying around everywhere.

I am very dissapointed, if you expect me to pay more than HK400 for this service a month you are mistaken, I’ve essentially just paid HK1 per megabyte of real internet usage, and the rest was a paltry dial-up experience, completely unusable as work broadband.

Stay away from this service and pay attention to this:

SmarTone-Vodafone has the absolute discretion to forthwithlimit your data throughput or amount of your data transferred

Let’s hope we get real WiFi everywhere, at least we don’t get rate limited to less than dial-up speeds, at least a modem provides 56k speeds.

All floors have coverage, I was pretty amazed, having lunch, popped out my laptop and voila! There was FON_FreeWifi. IFC is connected to the Hong Kong Airport Express and is Hong Kong’s International Finance Center, lots of restaurants and shops around, very cool.

So I had dinner in Happy Valley on Sing Woo Road and guess what, I saw a FON signal, I promptly logged in, it’s great! I was in a japanese restaurant called Yakitoritei at that time, not sure where the signal came from but it was great to have it, and use it!

Spread the free Wi-Fi!

FON Japan teams up with Livedoor to extend WiFi coverage throughout Tokyo

FON Japan and Livedoor Co., Ltd., a leading Japanese Internet Service Provider, have joined forces and announce today that Livedoor’s Wireless access points will become FON-enabled, allowing FON users to connect for free to the Internet through these Wireless Access Points (APs).

In Japan, FON offers more than 31,000 FON APs (known as FON Spots) primarily in residential areas of Tokyo, the largest WiFi offer compared with domestic public wireless access service providers. Additionally, Livedoor Wireless has around 2,200 APs within Tokyo’s 23 wards, covering 80% of the area inside the Yamanote Line, one of Tokyo’s busiest and most important commuter lines Tokyo. Through this partnership, FON users will be able to connect to a “FON_livedoor”signal that will be added to Livedoor Wireless’ APs, and they will benefit from a great increase in FON Spots within central Tokyo inside the Yamanote Line area and in commercial areas.

Usage of FON_livedoor will be free for FON members until August 4, 2008, and both companies plan to continue this service for free thereafter. About 100 FON_livedoor APs will be accessible from the start, and all 2200 APs will become FON-enabled by February 11th. Moreover, with this partnership, all “Livedoor” contents can be viewed from all FON Spots, including FON_livedoor, even before login.

For FON Japan, this partnership with Livedoor leads to an increase in the number of WiFi access points and an enhanced user experience. For Livedoor, this means greater traffic to their portal site “livedoor”. In the future, both companies will consider other partnership possibilities, such as two way roaming where Livedoor Wireless users can also access FON Spots.With the rapid increase in pocket size WiFi devices, the demand for WiFi on the go is definitely increasing significantly. By joining together, FON and Livedoor aim to build a WiFi environment whereby users can connect everywhere and build a new WiFi culture together.

This type of partnership where FON users can access APs operated by public wireless access service providers is the first of its kind by FON globally. FON Japan will continue to proactively seek similar ventures that enhance its users’ WiFi experience.

To celebrate this partnership, FON will launch an additional “Free Access Campaign” from February 4 to April 4th, whereby all FON Spots including FON_livedoor Spots will be accessible for free by all FON members, even those who have registered with FON but still do not yet share WiFi at home with a FON Router.
HOW TO USE THE SERVICE
1. Access to SSID called FON_livedoor with a WiFi device and open up your web browser. FON_livedoor’s original login page will be displayed.
2. Enter FON ID and Password from the login page and access the internet
3. FON_livedoor Spots will be displayed on FON MAPs with other FON Spots
4. Non-FON members can register from FON Spots including FON_livedoor AP and immediately access the Internet

Congratulations to FON for making it a top 10 startup to watch for. Happy New Year!

Fresh off the heels of the announcement we went to see if FON really works in McDonalds in the busy Central district on Queens Road right at the financial district next to the Bossini, Giordano and of course McDonald shop.

I take out my Wireless Device and……………..

The FON_FreeWiFi signal is shown, very cool, also tested the Signal strength on the street level.

The signal strength is not bad, not fantastic but I still get a Tx Rate of 54 Mbps.

and here is the FON captive portal, I login and it works although there is a bit of weirdness I’m on the Internet browsing! Well done, on the path to WiFi’ing up the City for free!

FON 熱點發佈會: 今天起香港 FON 熱點激增三百!

為了讓大家感受 WiFi Everywhere，
FON 走遍香港九龍新界，甚至離島．．．
務求發掘更多人氣熱點發放更多的 FON WiFi 訊號！

現在除了 McDonalds, Starbucks,
California Red Karaoke 等等連鎖餐廳可以透過 FON WiFi 上網外，
你更會發現 FON_FreeWiFi 隨時出現在你身邊。
身為 Bill 或是 Linus 的你，
記住隨身帶備你的 WiFi 設備，隨時用 FON WiFi 上網！

The signal is there! This is fontastic!

FONTASTIC FON SPOTS

This month we want to introduce you to a new FON Spot in Manila, Philippines! Read more

Remember to show us your creativity (FON Spots design, decorated La Foneras, creative WiFi, etc) by sending us an email to newsletter@fon.com, and we’ll send you a special FON gift!!

NOTES FROM THE MOVIMIENTO

We are a Community of 590,000 Foneros

Top Fonero of the Month

This month we would like to introduce you Jon Bracford and Alice, his little baby and our youngest Fonero. Read more

Last month, you told us that the men in black were…

• Galactic Imperialists: 48.9%

FON has been ramping up its efforts to establish a worldwide Wi-Finetwork that allows anyone to connect wirelessly for free, last month’s deal allowing BT broadband subscribers in the UK to access the network marked a big step forward. Now there’s speculation that Applecould be joining the party – could Apple be planning to encourage iPhone owners to sign up?

Source: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=1390&blogid=5