Fon (company)
Fon Wireless Ltd. is a company incorporated and registered in the United Kingdom that provides wireless services. Fon was founded in Madrid, Spain, in 2006, by Martín Varsavsky where it headquarters most of its operations. Fon started out by building its Wi-Fi network through devices called "foneras". Members, whom the company called "Foneros", agreed to share a part of their bandwidth as a Wi-Fi signal, so that they could connect to other members' hotspots. As the company evolved, it shifted its focus to working with mobile operators and telecommunication providers, and expanded from deploying residential Wi -Fi to providing access and technology to carriers and services providers. Fon claims to operate a network of over 20,000,000 WiFi hotspots. Company. Fon Wireless Ltd. is a for-profit company incorporated and registered in the United Kingdom. It was created in Madrid, Spain, by Martín Varsavsky where it headquarters most of its operations. Fon also has subsidiaries and branch offices in the United States, UK, Brazil, France, Germany and Japan. Its investors include Atomico Ventures, Google, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Skype. Early years. The original idea of Fon was to create a network for Wi-Fi access wherever  customers went. To become a Fon member, users had to buy a special router called a “Fonera”. With this router, they agreed to share a part of their bandwidth as a second Wi-Fi signal, in exchange for the right to use other members' Fon hotspots. To achieve this, Fon operated a system of dual access wireless networks. In 2007, Fon’s development model shifted to encompass ISPs and it began to work on creating Wifi community networks with British Telecom (BT) and SFR. In November 2007, Fon deployed its first wifi rollout, and continued using this foundation with more  telco partners in the years to come. Middle years. Since its initial involvement with ISPs, Fon continued to expand its network through partnerships with local Internet service providers in countries such as Germany, Greece, Japan, and Brazil among others. At the same time the company has continued to expand its product portfolio as technology developed. 2016. In 2016 the company evolved to include premium networks such as airports, hotels, convention centers, public spaces, etc. in addition to residential networks. Fon also has a technology portfolio called to allow service providers to deliver services to their own customers. Hardware and firmware . Originally Fon began with a software download for compatible routers, in particular, Linksys routers. This is custom firmware based on OpenWrt. Fon started using the OpenWrt base as firmware base for Fon branded routers. The firmware has been customised specifically for use in the Fon Community, allowing consumers to share their broadband connection and to connect to other Fon Spots around the world. Fon firmware creates two different Wi-Fi signals: one private and one public. The new 2014 Fonera SIMPL, introduced in February 2014, includes Facebook integration. The owner of the Fonera SIMPL may register their own Facebook account  with the device. Once this is done, any user that is a 'Facebook Friend' of the owner is granted access to that Fonera (only). The 'Fonera Business' takes Facebook integration further by offering free WiFi to customers of a business who are asked to 'Like' the Facebook page for the business in order to gain free WiFi access. In early 2018, the Online-Shop closed: ""manufacture and sale of Foneras has been discontinued"". Partnerships and Collaborations. Fon claims to have the largest Wi-Fi network in the world, with over 20 million hotspots as at June 2016. BT (UK). BT  Group (formerly known as British Telecom) and Fon formed a partnership on 4 October 2007. They jointly created the BT-Fon Community by flashing Fon's software on all BT Total Broadband WiFi routers in the UK. This allowed BT Total Broadband customers to participate in the Fon community without buying a Fonera router and in some cases without sharing their own WiFi. In June 2020 Fon's access to the BT WiFi network ended. No notification was given by either Fon nor BT (other than BT mentioning beforehand, the SSID "BT WiFi with Fon" would be changing to "BTwifi