The MoPR Blog

From your friends at MoPR,
a very Happy
Don’t Step on a Bee Day
to one and all.

Billing itself as the “largest Wi-Fi community in the world,” Madrid-based FON is aiming to leverage the social networking trend to create an army of FONeros, members of the FON community who are willing to open their Wi-Fi access point for use by the rest of the community.

To become a FONero you need what they call a FON Social Router; essentially a router with FON’s software. You can either download their software to your router, or purchase a special FON pre-configured router, currently selling for a promotional rate of $5. When you become a FONero, you are opening up your connection to the rest of the community, and in return you get access on any of the other access points in the community (thousands, all over the world) for free.

There are several user models described by the company:

Linuses: Linuses have broadband connections with a FON Social Router at home. Linuses roam all other Wi-Fi Access Points within the FON Community for free.

Bills: Bills are members of the FON Community too, but instead of roaming, Bills are like FON’s travel agents. They receive 50% of the net revenues from those who purchase FON Passes through the Bill’s FON Access Point. Bills also join FON because they like to advertise their products and services in their neighborhoods. FON gives them all the tools to personalize their Access Point and sign-in page.

Aliens: Aliens are not members of the FON Community, but still can use the FON network for a fee. Aliens using laptop computers or similar devices are permitted to access any FON Access Point by purchasing daily FON passes. The standard rate for these FON passes is currently $3 for a 24 hour connection period. FON passes are similar to pre-paid cards. Aliens pre-purchase these FON passes and then use them to connect to the Internet freely.

In late June, FON added enhanced features that play to the social networking phenomenon, including the addition of a FONero “User Zone” where community members can get interesting information in real time about their usage history (in the form of a FON Travel Log) and the use of their access point by others. FONeros will also be able to direct the FONeros using their access points to a certain blog or Web site, and can even leave personal greetings or messages for users.

Some big names in the tech space are paying close attention to FON’s efforts – including the likes of Google and Skype who invested in the company during its recent $21 million funding round led by Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital.

SiliconBeat covered the FON funding news, and Om Malik commented on FON’s potential, including insights from Wi-Fi Pundit Glenn Fleishman. Glenn’s own news site, Wi-Fi Net News, provides an incredibly in-depth and informed article about FON’s goals and the hurdles it faces.

From a PR perspective, FON is a dream client for MobilityPR – Right up our PR alley! Yes, they’ve got their work cut out for them, facing an uphill battle as they strive to sign agreements with the ISPs and convince users to sign up to create the density of locations necessary for solid coverage. But as Glenn points out from his interview with FON founder, Martin Varsavsky, the company isn’t focused on the enterprise users toting laptops but rather is focused on building a community to connect cell phones, game consoles and cameras with Wi-Fi embedded, and that (in my humble opinion) is as interesting as it gets in terms of mobility and connectivity. As PR professionals we long for clients with the exact mix FON has - - an exciting market challenge, the David vs. Goliath battle, a little bit of controversy, big name backers, solid and articulate spokespersons, and ultimately an opportunity to change the entire game.

The MoPR team would love to hear your thoughts on FON as well. Will you sign up? Why or why not? Would you opt to be a Linus or a Bill? Can this work?? Chime in with your 2-cents today…

NOTE: Other Wi-Fi bandwidth sharing ventures include: WiFree, SOHOWireless, and Wibiki.

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“Okay, you guys… [ cell phone rings; he pulls out a tiny cell phone ] Hold on. Hello? Yes. Really. Splendid. [ hangs up ] We’re going to the Dolce & Gabbana show. How fast can you have your bags packed for Milan?”

As the boss at Jeffrey’s, Will Ferrell (making his third MoPR blog appearance) demonstrated for America the marriage of fashion and mobility technology. In February 2001, with his super-mini cell phone, Ferrell helped us understand that the glitterati wanted technology compact and gilded; a sort of functional jewelry.

By Fall of that year, the boss at Jeffrey’s was placing a call on a phone not unlike the 1973 model held up in this picture of Martin Cooper, the inventor of the cell phone. “Big is the new small,” Ferrell’s character informs us, after he hangs up from his call with Cami Diaz.

Mobile phones, (aka cell phones and portable phones), began to flourish in the 1980s. But research and development into mobile phones dates back to the 1920s.

Built long before the transistor, imagine the size of the wooden box filled with vacuum tubes used to house the first mobile “phone” (like the one shown in this 1924 picture). Likewise, imagine the size of the batteries used to power it. Walking around with such a phone was not only impractical, it was impossible. So the first mobile communications devices were built into vehicles, primarily for military and public safety use. They also worked on radio frequencies (VHF) and were never part of any phone system.

The technology concepts for true cellular networks were not conceived until the 1940s (see MoPR Mobility Minute: US Patent 2,292,387). With transistors replacing vacuum tubes and better networks becoming available, cellular car phones were introduced – once again battery size keeping true mobile communicators out of the pockets of the glitterati.

By the 1970s mobile phones were portable enough to be carried around like a briefcase. By the mid 1970s, at last a phone that can fit in the palm of one’s hand. Martin Cooper, a former general manager for Motorola, is widely considered to be inventor of the cell phone. Placing the first call over a portable phone — to his rival Joel Engel, head of research at Bell Laboratories, where he began his conversation by saying “Hello Joel, guess where I’m calling from?” — Cooper not only invented the mobile phone, but also the phrase most widely used by people with new mobile phones.

With the cost of cell phones and cell phone calls making adoption prohibitive for most people, many calls were made for only two reasons: first, the person being called had to guess where the caller was calling from; second, the caller had to inform the person being called that a second call would be placed once the caller got to a landline.

By the 1990s the cost of phones and calls were making mobile phones attractive to the general population. Today many cell phones, now able to fit easily into the palm of the hand, a small purse or even the pocket of tight-fitting jeans, come free with an annual service plan, and lower per minute rates and prepaid plans make it possible for a much wider swath of the world’s population to enjoy getting their friends to guess where they are calling from.

Now state legislatures are taking up anti-cell phone regulation to keep people from talking while driving and cell phone etiquette guides would become widely available, and widely ignored.

Text messaging allows people from all over the world to send short instant messages from phone to phone and helps people learn to type with their thumbs using only 10 keys. Amazing.

As adoption increases so do features. Sharp Electronics of Japan put a camera into phones in the early 2000s, and now camera phones are included on a very wide variety of cell phones, including those given for free with annual subscription plans. Suddenly people all over the earth were taking pictures of themselves with camera phones to send people visual clues to help guess where they were calling from.

Ringtones helped personalize phones by allowing a ring to sound like your favorite song or to have different rings for different people. For example, when my wife calls my phone plays “Don’t You Love Her Madly,” by the Doors. When I call, the “Darth Vader Theme” rings over hers.

By 2006, with low-cost phones and plans making it possible for Americas teenagers to have their own camera-equipped cell phones, text messaging became a disruptive nuisance in the classroom. Fortunately, the mosquito ringtone was invented, which produced an obnoxious sound like the buzz of mosquitos that adults cannot hear but are audible to obnoxious teenagers. Now these teenagers can text one another in class without disrupting the lecture with rings or buzzes from vibrating handsets.

Okay fine, you kids go and play with your phones and send text messages about how lame the grown-ups are. But in the end, we’ll have the last laugh. Grown-ups are taking over MySpace (subject of a future post).

By the way, our much-beloved Will Ferrell wasn’t the first comic genius to teach us about the marriage of fashion and mobility technology. 35 years before Jeffrey’s opened its SNL doors, Agent Maxwell Smart was placing calls from a shoe.

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