FON Boards

Based on feedback from some of our Top Foneros, we learned that by changing the FON_AP to a more attractive name significantly improved the number of visits to FON Spots. So we decided to change all FON Spots’ (public) signal names which weren’t already modified by their owners.

How does this affect me?

This shouldn’t affect you in least, except for the fact that your FON Spot visitors will now see this new signal name. Hopefully, you’ll even see an increase of visits! If you like, you can still the name to 'FON_nameyouwant', but we recommend that you to keep this new name or at least something similar.

How can I change the signal name?

There are two options…

Option 1

1. Connect to the MyPlace? signal. 2. Open your browser and type http://192.168.10.1 and the console will be loaded. The standard user name and password are both the word "admin". 3. Click on "Public WiFi?" in the menu and then you can change the name behind the 'FON_'. Save your changes and the signal name will change. Perhaps you will have to wait a bit and/or refresh the WiFi? manager of your device to see the new signal name.

Option 2

1. Log into your My FON user area at fon.com with your FON username (email-address/password). 2. Then go to "Configure your FON Router" and in the Settings tab enter a new "Public Signal" 3. Save the FON Spot Personalization.

Changes may take up to 30 minutes to take effect on your FON Spot. If you want the change to happen immediately, reboot you La Fonera

I notice that the carefully-chosen phrase is: "visits are up", and not "sales are up".

Doesn't this undermine all of Fon's past flourishes about making money?
Doesn't this just make Fon a machine for collecting email addresses using the resources of 96k-212k volunteers?
Volunteers who purchased the device, which makes this possible, with their own money?

Suppose I could convince a friend to open a restaurant with his own money, and put up a sign saying "Free Lunch"... People will be served free finger sandwiches, made by me, after providing identification for my marketing lists. A few just might stay and pay for a full meal, but that would really be beside the point, right?

I have some reservations.

Advertising a FON hotspot as "Free InterNet" is not only misleading, it is not free, but it may bring some of us in trouble with their provider or maybe even with the law. In some countries it is illegal to leave an access point unprotected. In my country it is illegal to connect to an open hotspot without explicit previous permission from the owner. Now, we know that it is not really unprotected, but a passing LEO may get that impression and that may lead to a lot of hassle...

Do you have any examples/references regarding this? I mean "real life" examples not Cuba/North Korea/China or other places where internet access (as we know it) in itself is actually illegal.

Of course in most countries you might be liable for what the users do so it might not be in your interest to open your AP and surely if you somehow attract more users you attract more risks but there's no way around this.

Wardriving cops waiting to bust you for how you configure your AP, that's a nice concept . If they have any luck maybe they can tell us how they find FON_APs or FON_FREE_INTERNET because we have a very hard time to find any even by trying each one and we already have the GPS positions.

I too had some reservations when I first read this: what's up with this change, this is not entirely truthful, no warnings, this might be bad if you don't have some modern/GUI wireless manager (because your network will just die and never come back again if you were using the open FON_ network). But in the end the network IS open, it has internet conectivity and last time I think you were getting 15 minutes free + google, gmail and youtube free all the time (I might be wrong here). So it isn't that bad or misleading, it might actually be useful.

IIRC it is the State of NewYork that actually has such a law or where it is in the making.


The risk is reduced by not giving users "free" access, but requiring some form of authorisation.


Sad but true, I also find it disappointing that FON spots are so hard to find, but that has nothing to do with me feeling uncomfortable about advertising my hotspot as "free". My FON hotspot is highly visible. The 7 dBi outdoor antenna takes care of that.

The free 15 minutes have been the subject of a lot of discussion and many felt uncomfortable about it. To the point of throwing their routers in a lake! And I am not happy about the free access to google, gmail and any others. I understand it is some kind of necessity to keep the big sponsors *1) happy, but I can't say I like it.

I do not want my access point to provide free internet. What I want is that to get access you either have to pay or enter the deal of reciprocity by opening your own router for me. That was the original deal and that is what I signed up for. I do not like this salamy tactic of turning my hotspot into a honey pot.



Maybe, but I think it would have been better if FON had made this an "opt-in" issue rather than an "op-out" as it is now...

*1) I consider myself a sponsor too, albeit a small one. It is my equipment, my internet connection, my electricity, etc.

It's free internet but not free beer...
they get at least access to google/gmail; some consider this allready internet
they get at least 15 minutes a day of free internet as well;

allready by offering access on a not encrypted wifi channel they consider it "unprotected" although you could tell you restrict on mac adres, captive portal authentication.... very recently some student/teacher in The Netherlands thought of making a nice study out of it... (eg as old as the street wardriving was allready done 8 years ago)

Normally the Toc says you are not allowed to share your internet service with 3rd party nor get money out of it'; the latter you can solve with being a linus; then YOU are not getting any money.
Also if you are a fonero and you let only other fonero's on your hotspot then there isn't a 3rd party?

A grey area with lots of potential legal hassles thay I prefer to avoid. So I am not advertising my FON spot as "free internet".

Fon is for-pay Internet with a free trial option, not Free Public Internet.

Advertising it to the public as "free" both undermines the promise of profit for the Fonero members, and undermines the expectation to Aliens to pay. Oh, and as others are saying before, it's probably considered fraudulent advertising and potentially illegal.

Why are Foneros now buying $20 boxes to provide free public Internet and volunteer to help Fon gather email addresses? Has Fon done something to deserve such devotion and loyalty?

Good grief. Fon's business model has crossed the line into pure madness!

so from today on, there will be a good chance for A....tx to leave this board, otherwise others will declare him mad also !

That's AustinTX, not A** tx, madam!

But maybe I *should* abandon Fon, since I am smarter than many of you...

Isn't Fon become like an old club which no longer has a dj, has jacked up the price of drinks, and noone goes to any more? On the other hand, this club is still right under my block of flats...

Let's not get carried away here; if you have arguments for either side (preferably better than far fetched analogies) by all means, don't keep them for yourself.
We don't have too much until now (keep in mind I am referring ONLY to current topic and I assume those 15 minutes are a given - whether this is right or not is a bigger can of worms which I prefer to leave untouched):

This is busted I would say. Of all places NY has plenty of free APs (both commercially supported like Apple Store, cafes' - NOT Starbucks for now and residential "don't care" APs).

The provider can see only "the other side". They don't know how you named your AP (unless they start wardriving which I seriously doubt) but of course can determine that you talk to fon.com. In any case the situation is not changed one bit by naming your FON_ one way or the other (unless the TOS of your ISP has some provisions like "you can share your connection but you can't name it "FreeInternet").

The name is NOT "Free Public Internet"! It is free (as in you don't have to pay a cent and you can even register with any fake data) and it is internet (not some network that goes nowhere). So it perfectly fits the description. Sure, it doesn't fit other descriptions that we might be imagining (like "Unlimited Free Internet" or "Free Public Internet") but this is not what it says.

It WAS opt-in all the time (you could and actually can change the part after the FON_ to anything).

That sounds fair. The only question is whether the change will draw more Aliens to FON_ hotspots to compensate for the loss of this expectation to pay.

If you're referring to illegal in itself I couldn't find arguments in what has been said (see above). Now fraudulent advertising it's hard to say. As I said the description is perfectly correct. Apart from that I don't think the name of the ESSID counts really as advertising a product. There are plenty of companies with domain names free-something and of course most or all things they offer aren't free. There's a medium-sized ISP called freenet.de!

I am not going to quote every point and respond to it, just this:

That is not what I call "Opt-in". Opt-in as I know it requires the user to take some specific postive action like clicking on a "yes button" or returning a signed form. But now all Foneros who did nothing, all had there SSID changed by FON.

I do not know where you are from, you seem to prefer to remain as anonymous as this board allows. My guess is North America. Maybe they call this "opt-in" where you live, they certainly do not over here. The majority of Foneros may not even be aware of this. How many read this board? No, this is NOT opt-in.

FON is a global movement. Laws and regulations in countries differ and it is next to impossible to judge what the legal implications are from behind the screen in another country. I studied the situation in my country and I can not but conclude that by running a FON spot I am in a grey area. Both regarding the law and the conditions of my provider.

It is not for you, not for FON, nor for anyone else to tell me what risks to take. It is my neck that is stuck out. If I assess that having the beacon shout "Free InterNet" all over the place is a risk, then for me it is a risk. The decsion of wheter or not to take that risk should be mine and mine alone.

It doesn't matter where I'm from; common logic and English language should be universal enough however I maybe haven't been clear enough and I apologize for that.

I was saying It WAS opt-in as opposed to the first part of your statement: ...but I think it would have been better if FON had made this an "opt-in...". My point was that IT WAS ALREADY opt-in to make it FON_FREE_INTERNET or whatever else for that matter (and it was opt-out to make it FON_AP); referring to your statement there was nothing to be made opt-in, it was opt-in from day 0 but nobody "opted-in".
Now is the other way around as you said: it is indeed opt-out (which sucks) FON_FREE_INTERNET (and opt-in to make it whatever else).

For reference only: was this change announced via email? I haven't received anything but maybe I opted-out or did not opt-in or... [enough already] the mailing list.

I have never ever seen so much discussion over something as simple as a name. My public signal is named FON_15_Minutes_Free_Internet and has been since I got it.

As has been said there is NO ONE forcing this on you, there is NO ONE even forcing you to have your Fonera powered up. Some peoples' non-stop moaning about Fon is getting a bit wearing, if they don't like it why do they stay?

As has been said there is NO ONE forcing you to read this, there is NO ONE even forcing you to turn on your computer. Some peoples' non-stop moaning is getting a bit wearing, if they don't like it why do they stay?

You *do* realize that you're now "moaning" yourself now, right?

You're suggesting that we can only have Fon as it is given to us, or we must leave it altogether.

What would you prefer we do instead? Politely golf-clap their proclamations, obediently echo them in our blogs, and above all, frame our discussions in the form of praise and support? Never breathing a word of the shortcomings, flaws, bugs, security problems and other topics Fearless Leader might frown upon?

This is a discussion board, involving a population who are too intelligent to be easily manipulated or coerced! My feeling is; we Foneros are all entitled to express our feelings and discuss the consequences of Fon Movimentos. We're entitled to discuss Fon's logistical and business choices. Accumilation of the facts, evidence, personal testimony and the various points of view. This is a community. All are welcome to participate.

However, one does NOT pressure fellow Foneros to abandon discourse which they are unhappy with. You might influence us with reason and presentation, but NOT with mockery, coersion and authoritarian dication.

That is a common misunderstanding prevalent among - but not limited to - monolingual North Americans. There are variants of English and then there are non native speakers who are at a disadvantage. As for logic; there is formal logic, common day logic and fuzzy logic. Among others..

No need to apologize. These things happen and it was partly my fault that I misunderstood.

Ok, thanks for having that cleared up then.

I got no e-mail, but then I was not affected. I changed the SSID right away after installing the router. Maybe it was only send to those who never changed the default.

You abandoned FON a long while ago by offering only wifi to your neighbours instead of the entire fon community

I don't understand what you mean. Wouldn't this require an awfully big antenna, to reach the entire Fon Community from my house?

Do YOU supply wifi to the entire Fon Community? If so, I would really like to know about your range-boosting methods!

Com'on It has nothing to do with free internet, when people will see after the ad that the 15 min are Gone and that they have to pay , What will they think ? that someone lied to them .

And no google/gmail has nothing to do with internet, hopefully internet is a bit wider