FON Boards

PJMDS · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 00:07

It's amazing, such event must be shared with all:

More at http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/gene ... ience.html
read the comments and please add your own thoughts in there.

AustinTX · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 00:17

LOL, you work quickly, PJMDS! But then, it is a special occasion. It has been a long time since Martin permitted my comment! :wink:

PJMDS · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 00:32

I really hope that Martin can clarify the long lasting doubts from the community, keep up the good work AustinTX , ask him what we always wanted to know :wink:

AustinTX · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 02:25

PJMDS wrote:

I really hope that Martin can clarify the long lasting doubts from the community, keep up the good work AustinTX , ask him what we always wanted to know :wink:

It seems that he likes to think of Aliens as "members of the fon community" now, wheras we once became members when we registered a hotspot and became Foneros. :roll:

He has the advantage of ignoring details when he replies, so i'm forced to parry with his straw men.

PJMDS · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:15

AustinTX wrote:

PJMDS wrote:

I really hope that Martin can clarify the long lasting doubts from the community, keep up the good work AustinTX , ask him what we always wanted to know :wink:

It seems that he likes to think of Aliens as "members of the fon community" now, wheras we once became members when we registered a hotspot and became Foneros. :roll:

He has the advantage of ignoring details when he replies, so i'm forced to parry with his straw men.

I think he just made a very bad move by accepting your comments and reply to them, this says it all:

Martin wrote:

I don´t know who you are and I can´t keep debating you. Fon is a big success in many parts of the world. If AustinTX means you are from AustinTX you may actually be in a place where Fon has not been particularily successful. But frankly I dislike your tone as if we were not transparent. We are, we grow a lot. And we share our growth figures.

He doesn't know who you are and dislikes you :shock:

, it's a stupid excuse to ignore your valid arguments, he even got people to defend him :shock:

, I share most of your love for FON and I'm very sad that Martin thinks that FON is a success, if it was a success than FON would be in the news, blogs, etc. It's only in their own blogs and on the blogs of fans, most of the times it's news because of Hacks done to La Fonera not even a mention of FON "revolution", I wonder how he can still get money from investors

I was happy to see good news on La Fonera 2.0 but now I'm sad again, Martin can't defend FON "statistics" with valid arguments, this is why he's meeting with Steve Jobs failed, Steve Jobs isn't dumb

Roetzen · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:30

PJMDS wrote:

He doesn't know who you are and dislikes you :shock:

,

Frankly I doubt that. AustinTx has been very visible over the years and his existance could not have escaped the CEO of the company AustinTx is targetting.

PJMDS wrote:

I'm very sad that Martin thinks that FON is a success,

What else can he say? Saying the opposite will become a self fulfilling prophesy overnight. It is like the banks that are toppling as dominos these days. Their CEO's just have to keep saying their bank is solid until the very last minute.

What do you think about Martin's plan to double the price of a day pass?

PJMDS · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:39

Roetzen wrote:

What else can he say? Saying the opposite will become a self fulfilling prophesy overnight. It is like the banks that are toppling as dominos these days. Their CEO's just have to keep saying their bank is solid until the very last minute.

He could say that FON is in good shape or just improving the coverage each day but he says the word success and gives us big fake numbers, he should at least be a little more honest with us.

Roetzen wrote:

What do you think about Martin's plan to double the price of a day pass?

Very bad move, they should do the opposite, reducing the price in order to get more costumers,
if they do double the price than people will use more 3G services, at least with 3G you don't have
to be in the middle of the street or at someone window to connect :mrgreen:

skynetbbs · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 12:02

PJMDS wrote:

Very bad move, they should do the opposite, reducing the price in order to get more costumers,
if they do double the price than people will use more 3G services, at least with 3G you don't have
to be in the middle of the street or at someone window to connect :mrgreen:

While those that ask 10$ for access are all in an alliance whereas access is only 20$ a month (boingo deal)
AND are in better public places

kyros · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 12:19

I was surprised that Martin was brave enough to start a public discussion with the commuity - and especially with AustinTX.
But I was not surprised that he stopped it a few comments later.

I added a comment as well.
Edit: He published mine as well!

in Martin's Blog Kyros wrote:

Hi Martin,
It is not true that from your claimed 400k more than 100k (30% online) hotspots are usable!
From online FON hotspots most are impossible to find because:

1) not located on or near the shown location.
2) not connectable due to a much to weak signal.

In the FON community we made at least four professional field tests in urban surrounding to get knowledge about real active and connectable (= usable!) FON hotspots.
So these are real data (I chose each the best ratings of all our tests):

|—> Lets count from your claimed FON hotspots (FON says 400k hotspots)
|—–> 30 % of all FON hotspots are shown online in the FON maps (appr. 120k)
|——–> max. 36 % of all online FON hotspots are connectable in the field (appr. 44k)

Review the many published field test results in your own FON community if you need the proof – this is reality and this is true!

That means:

A chance of 1:10 for all FON hotspots to find a connectable one.
A chance of 1:3 for all online shown FON hotspots to find a connectable one.
For Aliens this is a 2:3 certainty for frustration even if you only target on active shown FON hotspots.

Thus 8 of 10 friends of mine who registered as Aliens for accessing FON Wifi outside gave me the feedback not to try FON again. Our tests over the last year showed that these figures change for the worse as a trend.
If you disagree please Martin publish the rate of your 1.000.000 Aliens which have connected more than 2 times to a FON hotspot…
In the community we ask since more than one year for a tool to be able to contact our neighbour Foneros via E-Mail (!). The current system does not reach the Foneros because offline Foneros do not visit their FON profile which holds the messages. Reaching your next Bill- or Linus-Fonero is extremely important to allow the community to help increasing the rate of connectable hotspots of our neighbour Fonero hotspot owning fellows.
But there is no acceptance from FON side and no such tool since more than one year.
And we want FON staff (including you as CEO) more to interact with the Foneros in the communities. Unfortunately there are less and less activities toward the community for motivation and cooperation in the last year as well.

Again - this is real and this is true.
Regards, Kyros

Regards, Kyros

Roetzen · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 12:43

PJMDS wrote:

Roetzen wrote:

What do you think about Martin's plan to double the price of a day pass?

Very bad move, they should do the opposite, reducing the price in order to get more costumers,
if they do double the price than people will use more 3G services, at least with 3G you don't have
to be in the middle of the street or at someone window to connect :mrgreen:

While Martin can not be blamed for the financiel crises we are in, he is part of the bursting bubble. When FON runs out of capital, that's it. In these days it is next to impossible to raise capital unless one can show a profit. Which FON can not.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. FON just has to do someting to stop the well from draining dry. Will it work? Like you I doubt it. People will move to 3G.

PJMDS · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 12:55

Roetzen wrote:

Desperate times call for desperate measures. FON just has to do someting to stop the well from draining dry. Will it work? Like you I doubt it. People will move to 3G.

Don't forget that FON has a very good opportunity to make money with the Fonera 2.0, it seems to be a good device with lots of potential, FON could sell it for EUR40 and make extra money, people would have it ON to share their bandwidth and for other purposes like having a cheap NAS or to spy on the neighbours with one USB camera :wink:

skynetbbs · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 13:01

PJMDS wrote:

Roetzen wrote:

Desperate times call for desperate measures. FON just has to do someting to stop the well from draining dry. Will it work? Like you I doubt it. People will move to 3G.

Don't forget that FON has a very good opportunity to make money with the Fonera 2.0, it seems to be a good device with lots of potential, FON could sell it for EUR40 and make extra money, people would have it ON to share their bandwidth and for other purposes like having a cheap NAS or to spy on the neighbours with one USB camera :wink:

why would they sell it at thesame price of a fonera+ ? :-)

PJMDS · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 13:07

skynetbbs wrote:

why would they sell it at thesame price of a fonera+ ? :-)

It's the same hardware than the fonera+ plus the USB chip and USB port, the new components are very cheap.
The fonera+ costs EUR29.95 so I would say that EUR40 is a fair price, I guess that every fonera 2.0 would cost FON about EUR20 or even less.

skynetbbs · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 13:11

PJMDS wrote:

skynetbbs wrote:

why would they sell it at thesame price of a fonera+ ? :-)

It's the same hardware than the fonera+ plus the USB chip and USB port, the new components are very cheap.
The fonera+ costs EUR29.95 so I would say that EUR40 is a fair price, I guess that every fonera 2.0 would cost FON about EUR20 or even less.

the difference between La Fonera and La fonera+ was only 1 extra "port"...and the price difference was also very big...
my guess is they will make both extremes

PJMDS · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 13:30

skynetbbs wrote:

the difference between La Fonera and La fonera+ was only 1 extra "port"...and the price difference was also very big...
my guess is they will make both extremes

That's because they like to take advantage of the early adopters, every company does the same, it's business :mrgreen:

I keep seeing our comments being accepted by Martin, finally he's reading what we think and not just moderating/ignoring it

skynetbbs · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 13:51

PJMDS wrote:

skynetbbs wrote:

the difference between La Fonera and La fonera+ was only 1 extra "port"...and the price difference was also very big...
my guess is they will make both extremes

That's because they like to take advantage of the early adopters, every company does the same, it's business :mrgreen:

I keep seeing our comments being accepted by Martin, finally he's reading what we think and not just moderating/ignoring it

has he accepted my comment yet? :-)

PJMDS · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 13:59

skynetbbs wrote:

has he accepted my comment yet? :-)

Not yet

, please post your comments here :wink:

skynetbbs · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 14:04

PJMDS wrote:

skynetbbs wrote:

has he accepted my comment yet? :-)

Not yet

, please post your comments here :wink:

* the competition has perhaps less hotspots...but they are available in public places
* the competition might ask 9,99euro/hour...they have deals with eg Boingo so people can pay 20 euro/month to have access for the full month...whereas FON is pretty expensive if you want to use it for more than a few days
* you have to stumble by accident on a fonspot whereas competition has a list of "working" hotspots which you can believe are present where they say they are. An example : maps.fon.com -> Alcobendas -> at FON HQ I notice a fonspot that has it's adres in the UK... how can a fonspot located in UK be shown in a street in Madrid?
Why do I find a lot of Japanese/Korean hotspots in the Benelux -> Dirty Wifi Directory.

Competition works together with international hotspot libraries.... FON plays cavalier seul

Roetzen · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 16:19

PJMDS wrote:

Don't forget that FON has a very good opportunity to make money with the Fonera 2.0, it seems to be a good device with lots of potential, FON could sell it for EUR40 and make extra money,

I wonder. I asked Martin what part of that 50K€ he says are the weekly revenues comes form selling daypasses and what part from selling hardware.

Do you think €40 for the Fonera 2.0 is value for money? Keep in mind that the competition is ruthless and many ISP's give wireless routers for free to new customers. And then you get a 4 port router.

PJMDS wrote:

people would have it ON to share their bandwidth and for other purposes like having a cheap NAS or to spy on the neighbours with one USB camera :wink:

Yeah right, that'll do the trick. :mrgreen:

skynetbbs · **Posted:** Tue Oct 07, 2008 16:23

Roetzen wrote:

PJMDS wrote:

Don't forget that FON has a very good opportunity to make money with the Fonera 2.0, it seems to be a good device with lots of potential, FON could sell it for EUR40 and make extra money,

I wonder. I asked Martin what part of that 50K€ he says are the weekly revenues comes form selling daypasses and what part from selling hardware.

Do you think €40 for the Fonera 2.0 is value for money? Keep in mind that the competition is ruthless and many ISP's give wireless routers for free to new customers. And then you get a 4 port router.

where only 2 ports are for PC
2 for IPTV
and then you have 2 VOIP ports where only 1 is enabled...one should think of connecting a FAX to the second and then call support to say it doesn't function (faxes get in endless loop with error correction as a human being just ...

and mostly limited in # connections as well ...
and the wifi part is mostly... limited
and by default very insecure (kpn ring a bell?)
or even mediocre (WEP)

none of them are currently sporting USB ports (not for usb sticks that is :-)

FON Boards

Martin approves AustinTX comment and even replies to him :O

Who is online