Deprecated FON Boards !

Hi, I am waiting for the impressive Fonera 2.0 to be available, is it in production yet and planned to be shipping soon?

I would really like to use Fonera 2.0 connected with a usb-hub to several NTFS formatted hard disk drives, and use it thus to host all my video content on the Internet, for me to access remotely from any Fon hotspot or any internet connection in the world.

Having remote control over BitTorrent and other RSS downloads directly onto the usb-connected through hub hard disk drive would also just be awesome!

Now I wonder if it makes sence and if it would be safe, now how about connecting also through the usb-hub to a special electrical splitter which you would manufacture. The speciallity of this electrical splitter is that it can turn off the power to the external usb hard disk drives for most of the time while those are not needed to be ON. Thus only when one is remotely connecting to ones server and that one starts to browse through the file listings of a certain hard disk drive that this special power splitter would turn on the power to that specific hard disk drive, which would thus just take a few seconds before the hard disk drive is totally running, maybe it only takes 2 seconds. The same it would do if RSS or RSS BitTorrent or just a remote download is to be done thus the hard disk drive is needed to store the file content.

In this way, I would like to have 4 or why not 8 or so hard disk drives connected directly using external USB hard disk drive cases, connected through usb-hub directly to the Fonera 2.0. To not have them all running all the time using a special usb-intelligent power splitter would be a great way to save power, prevent hard disk running all the time noise and would thus help in the cause of the global warming wouldn't it.

Will all protocols be compatible with Fonera 2.0? Be it BitTorrent, FTP, UPNP, Samba, remote-Samba, HTTP and more?

In November, it was written that Fon plans to release the La Fonera 2 (aka "Fon Downloader" and "Fon Liberator") some time in February.

http://elfonblog.fondoo.net/?p=31
http://www.fontastic.org/wifiproducts/f ... announced/
http://gigaom.com/2006/11/05/fon-gspace/
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/ (search for DOWNLOADER and LIBERATOR)

I asked on Martin's blog: liberator is delayed to august.

August, that's far away!

If this is confirmed, then I guess I will be finally ordering a Fonera 1.0 and I will be looking for some other NAS solutions..

I asked on Martin's blog few weeks ago and he said the august is changed to september.

What is wrong with it? Is it a technical problem or is it more something to do with somekind of marketing strategy, choosing that it needs more features before it is mass produced? Is it too expensive to try and market at this time?

If they are waiting until August, then why don't they add WiMax in the Fonera 2.0 ??? That would be awesome, that every Fonera 2.0 broadcast not only the FON SSID on Wi-Fi, but also a modern Mobile WiMax 802.16e signal, providing that governments authorize FON to do that (FON should ask for free 802.16e licences), this would provide free city-wide wireless broadband to everyone in a very quick and cheap manner. The best way to deploy such a network.

Then you could also provide a Fonera 1.0 -> Fonera 2.0 exchange service, where you would simply have volunteers ring the bell at Linuses and Bills active FONspots, and offer them to have the router changed on the spot to a Mobile Wi-Max and NAS enabled new generation of Fonera. And you could then recycle the Fonera 1.0 in countries where governments wouldn't let you install Mobile WiMax in peoples homes yet.

Please don't tell me this scenario couldn't happen because of potential radiation coming from such cheaply manufactured Mobile Wi-Max base stations / energy efficient Wi-Fi NAS personal storage routers.

The "La Fonera 2" will very likely be another rebadged Accton.com router. They build the current La Fonera as well. They have had models with both LAN and WAN as well as USB ports for some time now. Fon just hasn't bought a consignment of them yet. I would guess that the delay is because Fon estimates that they will finally have given away all of the current routers by September?

I've got a couple of Laptops -- Lenovo T60P's which come with a/b/g Wi-Fi modes.

Routers which include the "a" mode are almost as rare as "Hen's Teeth" - and are consequently high priced here in Hong Kong.

I'd certainly like to see a FON Access Point that included that mode - if only so that I can see what difference - if any - using the "a" mode has for my daughter & myself.

I hope that the next version has larger cooling holes in its case - I had to re-engineer the sides with an electric drill to enlarge the pitifully small holes so that the mini fan I "shoe-horned" into the case was [hopefully] able to move air in and out.

Without it, it'll probably burn up with heat exhaustion when Summer comes around with temperatures up to 33C & stuck on a windowpane too. & "cool" it just won't be !

The AP in 802.11a mode would then have b/g mode off. What you want is an 802.11n AP, which uses the frequencies which a and b/g use (as well as one other chunk, perhaps). I should read up on this, but I don't think 802.11n will fallback to a mode, though.

Pardon my confusion ... but..... correct me if I'm wrong .... I was under the impression that my Lenovos would give me the option to connect with "a" mode **IF** there was a router emitting an "a" mode signal for me to hitch a ride on?

I can not now recall the make & model of the a/b/g mode router that I saw - but - I supposed that it didn't require to have the set-up set to immobilise b/g modes to then permit "a" mode (only?).

I'm led to believe that perhaps the reason why there aren't more shops with a/b/g mode routers available for sale is because that "a" band has not been legitimised by our Hong Kong Commie Running Dog influenced Government - either that, or there's a large amount of "pre n" routers that the computer shops want to get out of the door before "a" mode is [possibly] legitimised.

Question - are these dual band routers (of any maker) generally available in the USA / elsewhere - and following on from that - are they of a comparable price to b/g models?

In HK, the only a/b/g model I saw (months ago) was about 3 times the cost of the cheapest b/g with 4 LAN ports.

I'm usually the person in this family to "Cut my throat on bleeding edge of Hi-Tech goods", but for the life of me I didn't want to waste my ca$h to get another Wi-Fi router when the 5 Wi-Fi signals I can radiate around my home are perfectly adequate. [2 FON signals; 1 Buffalo, 1 Eagletec AP, 1 AirLan AP] -- Yeah, overkill, but that's another story. <Grin>.

So, it really comes down to : Will FON's next version include "a" mode as well, and if so - will it restrict users use of it to b/g in areas where "a" mode has not been authorised?

As for the plea for additional LAN ports on it - it wouldn't be very useful to *ME* since I already have the FON Access Point suckered on to my window to radiate as much of the signal as I can - I don't think adding the additional weight of another LAN cable on to it will do anything more than making it even more insecure. <wry smile>. That's but a personal point of view, and I can imagine that others might well find additional LAN outlets on a FON Access Point to be useful for *them*.

The wifi adapters inside your, erm, "Lenovos", will not work with 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g simultaneously. Of those three types, 802.11g allows for fallback to 802.11b when permitted. 802.11a uses a different band of frequencies altogether. There is therefore no fallback between b and a or g and a.

I doubt that there is a conspiracy to put 802.11a out of business. It has been quite popular with wifi first-adopters, especially in office environments, for many years. 802.11n will be reclaiming the frequencies used by 802.11a and combining them with the separate frequencies used by 802.11b/g to establish a more versatile, and faster connection.

There is literally no chance whatsoever that Fon will issue an 802.11a-capable AP device. There is simply no demand for it. While an 802.11n-capable AP device might be popular, there is little chance that Fon will issue one, given the current slow rate of progress. One might still build their own, perhaps.

I was "fiddling" with one of my Lenovo T60P's this Hong Kong afternoon - and surprised myself when I came across an option for selection of Wi-Fi mode.

It allowed me to re-select to b/g mode & disable a/b/g's "a" mode.

Of course, I did realise that - assuming that I *did* have a dual band Wi-Fi Router - I wouldn't connect on anything other than the mode I had previously selected. <Grin>.

Any idea on whether those of us with the current routers will be able to trade up?

don't get your hopes too high...
every device that somehow servers printers & harddisks via usb seem to be "SLOW" (1,5mbyte/s) due to the speed of the "cpu"... it's only 166mhz and that's only a PDA cpu... not compareable with eg an intel P166...
Certainly not made to be a mover of lot's of data...

Hopefully it will be good enough for streaming up to HD video, like 3-5mbit/s if Mpeg4 but also up to 25mbit/s and more HDV Mpeg2 videos, on the local network, and hopefully it's fast enough also to stream all that at least one at the time over the Internet when one will like to access to the files remotely.

I'm in Hannover CeBIT filming for http://cebitvideo.com and I've been asking all the Wi-Max chip manufacturers if they could put the Mobile Wi-Max chip inside of a Fon router to broadcast not only a Wi-Fi Fonspot but also a Mobile Wi-Max Fonspot, this way cutting out the Wi-Max ISP having monopoly on Mobile Wi-Max deployment, and rather having a free wireless broadand for all. Some Wi-Max chip manufacturers like Sequans, Runcom, Alvarion and Wavesat told me it could be done. The 700mhz solution would be best, would provide lower bitrate but would provide better range, would seamlessly work without direct line of sight, through walls and all that, it'd be best if states would give up that range for the military or whatever is using 702-740mhz and use it for a country-wide Fon Wi-Max deployment. This way free wireless broadband could be deployed for just hundreds of thousands of few millions of dollars, and could even be covered by a business model like Fon which makes people pay who aren't sharing their own home broadband connection. I've asked if it might work fine to have 20 Wi-Max Fonspots in the same building or if that could create interference, I'm not sure what the answer would be to that.. I just hope some solution like it can be developped where all those 20 Fonspots in the building would somehow distribute the whole of their bandwidth and coverage to whomever needs it, and throttle it correctly so when the user is home he gets priority on the bandwidth, which only is being shared up to full speed when unused by the owner of the broadband access.

HDV should be mpeg-4... 1 movie being 15gigabyte... (average length 94minutes?) so 3mbyte/s is needed... I hope you didn't capp your wireless to 512kbit/s


Governments are allready discussing what to do when analog television will end in 2009 ; a lot of frequencies will be freed ...
Currently the only "pre" wi-max competitor ClearWire(?) is using 2,5mhz?

[quote="Charbax"]
having multiple devices using thesame band (2,4) like Dect phones, wireless (security) camera's, Wifi accesspoints... as pointed out in many messages... out of the "14" channels only 3 can be used in a +-100 meter radius ... I do notice a lot of wifi arround... all "protected"...
I also have a dect phone (no problems with that one... )
I also have such a camera...and it shows a lot of "distortions"... it only has 4 adresses...

but putting 2 fonera's within a 200meter radius is asking for trouble...
they disappear too much... I hardly see them all 4 ssid's...
I should do a more thorough scan showing their used channels though

With Mobile Wi-Max in a Fonera 3.0 would boot up the range from the current 100-200 meters for Wi-Fi to 1km-2km with Wi-Fi N and Wi-Max and even more. This means there could be city wide wireless broadband coverage easilly with just a few hundred or a few thousand Fonera 3.0..

Fonera 1.5 (similar to current but with a LAN port) is launching April/May.

Will they be replacing the Fonera 1.0 in the Fonero Gets Fonero deal?

I haven't been told. I think we'll continue to offer both, I don't know how the fonero gets fonero offer will be effected. Will post more when I get an update.