FON Boards

Hi all,

in our German fonboard.de my friend and board member horst1970 hast posted information he got from Freifunk community about a German court decision where a female Fonero <correction: It seems that FON itself was the defendant> was adjudged for providing FON. The court described this as "parasitic" WLAN sharing which was described anti-competitive for the Internet Service Provider's business modell.

• Link to the posting in our http://www.fonboard.de: http://www.fonboard.de/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4388
• Link to the German languaged court decision describing webpages:
  http://www.telemedicus.info/article/1391-OLG-Koeln-stoppt-schmarotzendes-WLAN-Sharing.html
  http://www.telemedicus.info/urteile/Internetrecht/809-OLG-Koeln-Az-6-U-22308-WLAN-Sharing-ist-wettbewerbswidrig.html
• For our English languaged Foneros in this FON-board I made a Google translation for the two links above:
  http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telemedicus.info%2Farticle%2F1391-OLG-Koeln-stoppt-schmarotzendes-WLAN-Sharing.html
  http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telemedicus.info%2Furteile%2FInternetrecht%2F809-OLG-Koeln-Az-6-U-22308-WLAN-Sharing-ist-wettbewerbswidrig.html

Let's see what FON will response...

Does FON know about this case?
If Yes - Did the accused female Fonera received help from FON side? <correction: It seems that FON itself was the defendant> Why didn't FON inform their community?
If No - Will FON help the accused female Fonera for the <correction: It seems that FON itself was the defendant> appeal against the judgment? This would be essential especiall for protecting FON's interrests ans business modell in Germany.

Regards, Kyros

Edit: Added correction: It seems that FON itself was the defendant

I'm curious as well...
Perhaps she should contact FON's legal department?
somewhere in these pdf's could be a procedure explaining this?
http://www.fon.com/en/legal

I will give you more information as soon as I get it. Could it be that is not a female Fon user, but a Fonera router?

A female fonero from Cologne that shared her internet with a fonera router.
The ISP "1und1/netcologne/telekom" seems to have brought her to court...

"The defendant makes the claim for unfair competition by focusing on their business model to the free sharing of DSL Internet access service, which the applicant their customers against a fee calculated differently recognizable available. Instead of using their own technical and organizational services at wholesale by a third party in order to develop the market, they use one of the applicant under different conditions created infrastructure "parasitic" to deal with its own offer on the commercial market. "

I think this is a very interesting development. It seems that it's getting more and more treacherous to operate a Fonera nowadays and the payout is really nothing (many people complained that they can't find ANY Fonera to roam to no matter how hard they looked).
I'm sure Fon wouldn't even dream of having an international law-suit with 1&1.
Probably this wouldn't have happened if Fon had some kind of strong VPN/tunneling but this costs money (much more infrastructure than some average bandwidth web+authentication server) and it's a pain to support.

/*** this is pure fiction, just a guess
I don't know exactly what triggered this lawsuit, I can't imagine 1&1 going after Fon for the sake of it. I imagine they rather noticed the "above average usage" and tried to terminate the contract for this (I've heard about such cases). Probably the fonero fought back with something like "my usage is normal, I'm doing this, it should be legal" and thus the lawsuit (where quite predictably 1&1 won).
***/

Here in Belgium it's "legal" to share your internet connection;
but every ISP will have in their contract that it should not be given out to 3rd party...
If you strictly abide this contract; you can only have 1 family member using that internet connection; and routers are forbidden.

Now routers have been sold since broadband became active on the market (2000)... no issues here;
and when we asked the ISP's if we were allowed to use a fonero then most of them just told us that "we" are responsible for 3rd party access (so if someone sends childpornography using FON_AP) then my isp won't help me... FON will then assist in telling the police it wasn't me... it was someone else... case closed.
In France this case seems to have happened (dixit a French television interview last month here in Belgium!) and the Fonero was not to blame.

You can install as many tools to try to prevent such things of happening...if China or Iran can't make their Firewall bulletproof...don't expect your ISP or FON to do it better... also most will start about "netneutrality".
Currently it's best to be able to authenticate the person doing it then trying to stop them... So in Germany & Italy FON uses SMS authentication which is waterproof there...
I'm curious for alternative wifi sharing where there is no such authentication... "I blame my open accesspoint when something goes wrong?"
How do they do this with FreiFunk? Are they next on the list of this ISP?
I guess there is no FreiFunk Cologne active?

Just to be clear:


there hasn't been an accused female fonera!

FON itself has been brought to court.

Okay I've tried to read the whole court order...
indeed if I read this right the accused is a "british firm with german roots"... sentenced to 250.000 euro or 6 months of jail due to reselling domestic internet access. They also explain linus/bill/aliens...

So at the moment "aliens" should be prohibited in Germany or should not be asked to pay for internet access?
Sharing your wifi with your neighbours/family/friends is still allowed if I read correctly?

update :

http://www.golem.de/0907/68230.html : FON's Businessplan is considered illegal
http://wir.sind.wernigero.de/2009/07/ar ... gegen-uwg/
http://vanilleeis.twoday.net/stories/fo ... illkommen/
http://meneame.net/story/fon-declarada- ... ompetencia

Now exactly that happened, what I predicted 3.5 years ago in this posting:
And I'm absolutely sure FON's appeal at Germany's supreme court will fail. FON will soon disappear in Germany.

(Again guessing) they are probably indeed referring to "FON Wireless Limited" (incorporated in UK); the "german roots" probably would be more like "german ties", probably via some local branch and/or contracts (see E-Plus deal) and/or local "associates" (german Foneros).

I think this will be cool to watch, it almost seemed like this would be a boring week
If I had a contract with a german ISP I would make sure for the moment that my fonera is off, just in case they want to go after individuals after all...

I believe they only want to get rid from FON on the German Market
The idea of "sharing" your wifi with the Fonera 2.0 using a 3G stick... and the partnership with Eplus to get national publicity on this idea...is frightening them....
Eg Eplus was announced on june 3rd.... this case started on june 6th...... why now?
Eg Iphone 3.0 allows only 1on1 thetering (usb/bluetooth) the wifi thetering got removed as well

The only action you can do now is to put your family&friends account in your captive portal personalisation.
This judge ALLOWS you to share your wifi for your neighbours...
and because your fonera can hardly go beyond your neighbours walls AND you are not asking any money (family&friends)
you fonera is now "legal"...
Luckily FON's business plan also earns money from the selling of the Fonera Routers...

Of course, 1&1 is part of United Internet which is a German company (quite important one, part of TecDAX). I don't think they can really claim Fon hurts their interests anywhere else but Germany (plus the vast majority of companies really think twice before starting overseas lawsuits)

Iphone is a bad example, they're removing everything they can (you can't even install your own application on your own iPhone if Apple doesn't say "yes, you can").

No, it's not the only action you can take. You can just take your Fonera offline (it's not the main access point for most of us anyway). Sure this would mean to break the "Fon promise" but I don't think this promise included breaking any laws. You could of course just wipe out the Fon software on the box and using it as a normal router (for Fon this would be the same as the box sitting in a drawer). It doesn't matter where you put your (limited number of) friends&family, just continuing what you're doing (basically being an accomplice of Fon in illegally distributing a residential connection) won't help you if your ISP decides to go after you.

"yes you can" ... that's a canon quote... can you install a Canon MP620 on a Win2003 64bit ? no you can't ...that's a server os...and we don't write server drivers for consumer printers
so YOU CAN but YOU WON'T

by doing that you are only "helping" this accuser...and be "evil"
FON has allready created a "turn of fon sharing" button on the FON 2.0 RC4

There is much that has been said about Fon's business model, which leaves it open to legal problems like this. We've worried about something like this for 3+ years now. Luckily, ISPs have mostly preferred to ignore wifi-sharing, even when it involves resale such as Fon facilitates.

Looking to the present and future though, what I would be most interested in seeing, is how Fon engages the legal system and fights for it's existence in this matter.

Will Fon use it's resources for a just and worthy legal battle, or will it roll over and play dead? Will it say "sorry DE Foneros, but here is a coupon for a half-price Fontenna for your trouble"?

Remember, Fon only makes money selling merchandise, and has exhibited nothing but contempt for the Fonero Community and their silly little ideas. Fon has already sold their hot little boxes to the Germans... sales are tapering off everywhere... Fighting for the right to operate in the DE region when it is already a break-even or loss district (and Foneros don't matter) might not be high on Fon's priorities today.

Considering the sheer size of the German Fonero population, and how they comprise the leaders of the Fon Hacking Community, I wonder what will happen if there is suddenly a glut of hundreds of thousands of useless, but reprogrammable wifi routers? There will be a non-Fon firmware for every LF model available before the end of the week! Foneros worldwide will stand up and pay attention. Many will be suprised to hear that LF can do so much more than they have been allowed to do! With such critical mass, and the Press attention given to it, this anticipated firmware stands a chance to become the dominant firmware on La Fonera routers everywhere.

Hopefully, Fon considers it's obligation to the DE Fonero Community, and does not jettison them in order to preserve their diminished Investment Fund. A catastrophic loss of confidence in Fon could mean sudden death with a chaotic ending.

The only thing they can do is sit at the table with this ISP... and make "them" bill just like bt/neuf/zon/comstar
then it's a WIN-WIN situation for ISP/FON... and a "lose" for the "bills" in that region (Cologne) I guess?


the fonera 2.0 is "again" out of stock...
it seems they only have cash in bank to buy a 1000 F2 at a time ....


Offcoze it is... They only recently acquired an interesting deal with Eplus in Germany which might go to the Benelux afterwards if successfull (eplus is a daughter of Kpn Netherlands/belgium)



they will end up on ebay because the majority doesn't know how to flash/hack'm
and as soon as FON shuts down their servers they will go into "limited internet" mode
The alternative firmware is allready available...those who are able are allready flashing it on their Foneras; those people are not interested in sharing their wifi... and probably a lot of people did this...hence this is now an option on the Fonera 2...

... still awaiting "bridge" option

While I certainly get the point of civil disobedience, following the law and the contract you signed certainly isn't "evil". If some people want to fight the right to resell your residential internet connection, all right, more power to them. I DON'T want that; what I DO want and have is a fast and cheap connection for myself. This connection can accommodate 10-100 users assuming they aren't torrenting at the same time. If the ISP is forced to give the people the right to resell their connection then they'll sell 10X-100X less contracts so they'll have to charge 10X-100X more! I certainly DON'T want that to happen.

I don't know what the "turn off Fon sharing" button does but I would hope (especially after this verdict) that it disables all communication that can be associated with operating a Fon hotspot (heartbeats, logins, etc).

As I said, interesting times ahead. I don't think there's a realistic way for Fon to be a hero in this situation but it's better to have low expectations, you can only have pleasant surprises

Fon has never hesitated to sell the souls of their Foneros to an ISP in return for a "partnership", but these "partnerships" would only protect their operation with individual ISPs. The Courts seem to have actually ruled for-pay wifi-reselling itself to be illegal otherwise! At a minimum, Fon could simply ignore the situation and allow other ISPs to shoot down Foneros one-by-one, or at a maximum, Fon might simply cut the throats of every unpartnered DE Fonero to avoid being drawn into lawsuits itself, or god forbid, being asked to cough up all those sketchy activity logs!

Interesting... but how does this benefeit Foneros who belong to non-partner ISPs? And if Fon's value to Eplus is suddenly lost, might Eplus sue Fon to get off it's butt and fight the DE courts for an exemption or other arrangement?

All true, but I fear you've missed my point.

Many Foneros don't tinker with their Foneras because the devices either work "well enough" or they have the "Fonero Promise" to honor. If Fon severs ties with all of these devices, then the DE Foneros are free to do what they want with them! And PC repair shops everywhere will be more than willing to perform firmware upgrades, or even just buy up unwanted devices for repurposing. Worldwide tech news will suddenly be buzzing about how Fon flushed one of their biggest chunks of members down like warm sewage, and about the alternate firmware that has always worked better than Fon's own crippleware. The world reaction will draw more attention to inconvenient facts about Fon's performance and customer loyalty, and many people may even switch firmware although they don't technically have to (yet).

It's a fire that may spread well outside the DE zone which Fon is likely willing to sacrifice.

In the end, this court ruling is NOT good for Fon, nor does it seem to represent a new business or PR opportunity for them. It represents a danger to either be exposed in a negative light, or lose investment funds that have not been thougherally skimmed yet. As always, they'll take the path of least resistance; they'll make a few unpublicised gestures perhaps, and when the mobs arrive at their doors bearing torches, they'll put off the ending a little longer by digging up those gestures as proof that they tried.

Here the link to the original court decision text:
http://www.justiz.nrw.de/nrwe/olgs/koeln/j2009/6_U_223_08urteil20090605.html (Link to Google-tanslated into English)

And a link to a newletter's webpage where you can read in the last sentence that FON answered them that they received the judgement and will appeal against it:
http://www.az-web.de/news/computer-detail-az/966642/Gericht-untersagt-Weitervermietung-von-DSL-Zugang (Link to Google-tanslated into English)

So let's ask FON here: If this is correct why didn't you tell us?

Regards, Kyros

It's not like Fon has any means to communicate with the outside world. They only have everyone's email addresses, a dozen blogs in different languages, and half a dozen discussion forums. They only have their contacts at Gizmodo and Om to pass the word along to the global blog network. They could announce that they had sold the business, and who would notice?

Er... that link above says Fon will appeal to the Bovine Growth Horomone?

I guess a FON-Blog posting would had been sufficient...

Special translation service for AustinTX for the last sentence in http://www.az-web.de/news/computer-deta ... DSL-Zugang:

German: Fon erklärte, man habe das Urteil erhalten und werde es beim BGH anfechten. (BHG -> Abbr. for Bundesgerichtshof").
English: Fon said that they had received the judgement and will appeal to the Federal Court of Justice.

Regards, Kyros