http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_42/b4054045.htm for the full article, an excerpt:

The BT deal should help FON’s network grow exponentially. Under the terms of the agreement, the British phone carrier will install FON’s technology in the modems of 1.7 million of its customers. In recent months, FON also has inked smaller deals to pre-install its software with cable operator Time Warner (TWX ) in the U.S. and phone carrier Neuf Cegetel in France.

Thanks to these deals, FON could become one of the few companies to cash in on the promise of Wi-Fi service. For years the technology has been promoted as the next big thing in telecommunications. But so far Wi-Fi has generated more bluster than business. Big tech players such as Intel Corp. (INTC ) and IBM (IBM ), for instance, have pulled the plug on some of their ambitious initiatives. "We view this as a transformational event," says Danny Rimer, a partner at European venture capital firm Index Ventures, which has invested in FON. "It should translate into significant revenue growth over time."

Who will win the race?

This article has some of the background.

Done any FONing lately? Most Americans have never heard of the Madrid-based tech startup called FON, but if founder Martin Varsavsky has his way, the name will enter the lexicon the way "Googled" and "Skyped" have. Thanks to a new joint venture with BT Group (BT), announced on Oct. 4, he may have a shot.

There were several blog mentions on this, I took the image from there announcing the birth of BT FON, Congratulations to BT and FON to quote:

Now the Net is abuzz with the news: FON has joined forces with BT to make FON accessible to over 3 million of BT’s Total Broadband customers, creating a potentially unrivalled WiFi community.

Congratulations to FON for this fantastic news, from the original post:

Neuf Cegetel, the number one alternative carrier in France with over 3.5 million subscribers, and FON have updated the Neuf Box 4 (the latest Neuf Router, based on open source operating system) so Neuf subscribers can activate the new Neuf WiFi FON service, share their WiFi with Foneros around the globe, and get free WiFi access on all FON Spots everywhere. Already more than 500,000 Neuf Boxes have been centrally enabled with this FON software upgrade and the subscribers can now become WiFi sharers and receivers. By the end of 2007, around 1 million Neuf Boxes will have been upgraded with FON functionality.

Again Congratulations FON, this is a fantastic develop and a huge step forward in a WiFi free world!

In the cover article of CNBC Europe, the full article is here.

The one thing that caught me was the news that a new router will be released that can go up to 400m in range! Cool.

FON’s premise is that subscribers agree to share their existing internet connection via a router that the company provides. This means that someone in your street can be surfing the web via your router, which beams out its Wi-Fi hotspot over 100 m. In return, those who sign up receive a user name and password allowing them to access other FON hotspots worldwide without having to pay a cent. Significantly, non-participants in the scheme can also access a FON hotspot at a cost of $3 (€2.20) per day, some $7 cheaper than the typical fee charged by established hotspot providers. A new router scheduled for release later this year promises a 400 m range, meaning extortionate hotel internet charges could soon be a thing of the past as free Wi-Fi is beamed over from an office or café four streets away.

I’m not sure if I saw this before, but I thought it was really quite funny.

I didn’t realize it, but the new FON Shop looks really neat, check it out over here. English and Chinese version for Hong Kong obviously. It comes out on top of Google!

What is interesting is that the USB WiFi adaptor has been SOLD OUT, why are they not making new ones?

I’ve seen FON in IFC before but never checked it out more as usually I am in a mad rush when I am in there buying stuff or going to a meeting, so today I’m going to write a bit more about it since I had dinner there and as I walked around this popular Mall while it was empty I was actually able to see exactly what was going on there!

The Signal was very strong on the 1st and 2nd Level closest to Mikimoto (famous for pearls) and Prada (famous for really very expensive fashion). So for all the bored boyfriends/husbands who need to wait as their other half does the Shopping, they can download stuff at super high speeds! Yeehaa!

Obviously IFC is a very popular location and I was not surprised to see excellent coverage of all sorts of Wi-Fi signals, I was surprised not to see PCCW but HKBN and CSL were there as well, the other signal I think was random and one was obviousy secure. I didn’t realize CSL was also offering Wi-Fi services.

The most interesting thing was that the Signal held out all the way into the Lane Crawford which is a level above, and is also very popular, so now at least I know that if I need to get my quick download Fix, this is where I go in IFC! I haven’t done more thorough checking but the Signal was best in those areas I thought but I welcome any other FON findings!

Courtesy of Flickr images via blog.fon.com/hk

An uninformed article at The Washington Post claimed that Japan had the worlds fastest Internet connection.

Quote:

Broadband service here is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States — and considerably cheaper. Japan has the world’s fastest Internet connections, delivering more data at a lower cost than anywhere else, recent studies show.

The article got dugg many times and consequently became popular, but this simply isn’t true. It’s true that Japan has much faster and cheaper broadband in the USA, that’s not difficult at all, infact most developed Nations have better broadband service than the USA but the first country to develop super fast broadband was Korea, and the fastest connection service is in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is also the only place in the World that has a successful IPTV deployment with NOW that is actually a true challenger to Cable TV.

Sure there are individuals who have faster connections like the famous swede that has 40 G/bs going into her home, but as a mass residential product, Hong Kong and Korea were first to offer 100 Mbps into the home and since a few years ago also 1 Gbps per second. And that was all the way back in 2005!!