Fon Wireless Ltd. is a

for-profit company A for-profit corporation is an organization which aims to earn profit through its operations and is concerned with its own interests, unlike those of the public ( non-profit corporation). Structure A for-profit corporation is usually an organizatio ...

incorporated and registered in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

that provides wireless services. Fon was founded in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, Spain, in 2006, by

Martín Varsavsky Martín Varsavsky Waisman-Diamond (born April 26, 1960) is an Argentine entrepreneur based in Spain who founded several companies worldwide, including Urban CapitalMedicorp Sciences Viatel, Jazztel, EINSTEINet, Ya.comEolia

Company

Fon has subsidiaries and branch offices in the United States, UK, Brazil, France, Germany and Japan. Its investors include Atomico Ventures,

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

Index Ventures Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, investing in technology-enabled companies with a focus on e-commerce, fintech, mobility, gaming, infrastructure/ AI, and security. Since its ...

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...

and

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

Early years

The original idea of Fon was to create a network for Wi-Fi access wherever customers went. To become a Fon member, users had to buy a special router called a “Fonera”. With this router, they agreed to share a part of their bandwidth as a second Wi-Fi signal, in exchange for the right to use other members' Fon hotspots. To achieve this, Fon operated a system of dual access

wireless network A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing ...

s. In 2007, Fon’s development model shifted to encompass ISPs and it began to work on creating Wifi community networks with British Telecom (BT) and

SFR SFR (; ''Société française du radiotéléphone'', ) is a French telecommunications company. As of December 2015, it had 21.9 million customers in Metropolitan France for mobile services, and provided 6.35 million households with high-spee ...

. In November 2007, Fon deployed its first wifi rollout, and continued using this foundation with more telco partners in the years to come.

Middle years

Since its initial involvement with ISPs, Fon continued to expand its network through partnerships with local Internet service providers in countries such as Germany, Greece, Japan, and Brazil among others. At the same time the company has continued to expand its product portfolio as technology developed.

2016

In 2016 the company evolved to include premium networks such as airports, hotels, convention centers, public spaces, etc. in addition to residential networks. Fon also has a technology portfolio called to allow service providers to deliver services to their own customers.

Hardware and firmware

Originally Fon began with a software download for compatible routers, in particular,

Linksys Linksys is an American brand of data networking hardware products mainly sold to home users and small businesses. It was founded in 1988 by the couple Victor and Janie Tsao, both Taiwanese immigrants to the United States. Linksys products in ...

routers. This is custom firmware based on

OpenWrt OpenWrt (from ''open wireless router'') is an open-source project for embedded operating systems based on Linux, primarily used on embedded devices to route network traffic. The main components are Linux, util-linux, musl, and BusyBox. All ...

. Fon started using the OpenWrt base as firmware base for Fon branded routers. The firmware has been customised specifically for use in the Fon Community, allowing consumers to share their broadband connection and to connect to other Fon Spots around the world. Fon firmware creates two different Wi-Fi signals: one private and one public. * Private ('MYPLACE') : encrypted and intended for the owner's private use. Only the Fon Spot owner can access the internal network, computers and files. * Public ('FON_FREE_INTERNET'): un-encrypted or open, but username and password protected so allowing only registered Fon users to access the Fon Wi-Fi community network, but they cannot access the consumer's private network. The new 2014 Fonera SIMPL, introduced in February 2014, includes Facebook integration. The owner of the Fonera SIMPL may register their own Facebook account with the device. Once this is done, any user that is a 'Facebook Friend' of the owner is granted access to that Fonera (only). The 'Fonera Business' takes Facebook integration further by offering free WiFi to customers of a business who are asked to 'Like' the Facebook page for the business in order to gain free WiFi access. In early 2018, the Online-Shop closed: "''manufacture and sale of Foneras has been discontinued''".

Partnerships and Collaborations

Fon claims to have the largest Wi-Fi network in the world, with over 20 million hotspots as at June 2016.

BT (UK)

BT Group BT Group plc ( trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, bro ...

(formerly known as British Telecom) and Fon formed a partnership on 4 October 2007. They jointly created the BT-Fon Community by flashing Fon's software on all BT Total Broadband WiFi routers in the UK. This allowed BT Total Broadband customers to participate in the Fon community without buying a Fonera router and in some cases without sharing their own WiFi. In June 2020 Fon's access to the BT WiFi network ended. No notification was given by either Fon nor BT (other than BT mentioning beforehand, the SSID "BT WiFi with Fon" would be changing to "BTwifi", but without informing the date of the change not that it would end access). On the day of the change all access points from BT disappeared from the map on the Fon app.

SFR (France)

In 2007 Fon and SFR launched Fon on WiFi routers throughout France. SFR subscribers can opt into Fon to share and receive WiFi services.

NOS (Portugal)

The partnership ended in March 2020. In 2008, ZON (now NOS) announced a partnership with Fon to create the largest WiFi network in Portugal. Fon technology is built into NOS WiFi routers so its subscribers become part of the Fon community automatically. In March 11th 2020, the partnership between NOS and Fon ended. NOS discontinued the Fon service and changed the existing Fon hotspots (integrated into some of NOS WiFi routers) to its own Wifi sharing initiative NOS_Wi-Fi_Hotspots, usage of this service was only available to NOS costumers. In August 13th 2021, NOS discontinued the NOS_Wifi service stating it wasn't possible to continue to offer the service, given that the new generation of Routers can't support the functionality.

SoftBank (Japan)

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...

is Fon's first collaboration with a mobile line operator wanting to offload data traffic to WiFi. Since 2010, SoftBank bundles a Fonera with every iPhone they sell.

Oi (Brazil)

On 31 October 2011 Oi announced its partnership with Fon, granting global WiFi access to its broadband customers.

Proximus (Belgium)

Discontinued; From November 2011 through 2018, Belgacom (now

Proximus Proximus (stylised as pro⌘imus; formerly known as Belgacom Mobile) is the largest of Belgium's three mobile telecommunications companies and is a part of Proximus Group (previously Belgacom Group). It competes with Orange Belgium and Base. ...

) was part the Fon network. Proximus added Fon's WiFi-sharing technology to its BBox2 modem earlier in 2011, making it possible to broadcast two WiFi signals from a broadband internet source. Fon Membership was automatically activated (opt-out).

Netia (Poland)

Discontinued; From 28 February 2012 through 2018 Fon was added Poland to its network, deploying over 100,000 hotspots in the first few months.

KPN (the Netherlands)

Discontinued;

KPN KPN (in full Koninklijke KPN N.V., also Royal KPN N.V.) is a Dutch landline and mobile telecommunications company. KPN originated from a government-run postal, telegraph and telephone service and is based in Rotterdam, Netherlands. History Un ...

, a large

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

company in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, and Fon formed a partnership to publicly launch the Fon network on KPN modems. As of 1 August 2020 this partnership is discontinued.

Deutsche Telekom (Germany)

In March 2013, a partnership with Deutsche Telekom in Germany was announced. This has not been actively marketed since 2020. The partnership is expected to be discontinued in 2021. Four other Telekom branches have joined the Fon network:

HT (Croatia)

In Spring 2013, HT and Fon announced the addition of their new partnership in Croatia.

Cosmote (Greece)

In February 2014, Cosmote (then OTE), became the second DT company to join the Fon network.

Telekom Romania (Romania)

2 July 2014 marked Fon’s expansion into Romania with another DT company, Telekom Romania.

Magyar Telekom (Hungary)

On 5 April 2016 Hungary became the 17th country to join the Fon network, and the 5th DT subsidiary to become a partner. On the 1st of September 2020, Telekom discontinued the service in Hungary.

MWEB ADSL (South Africa)

In February 2014, MWEB joined the Fon network. MWEB customers that have a Fon enabled router can share their WiFi Bandwidth and also use those of other Fon users in the countries and locations that Fon have partners.

Telstra (Australia)

Telstra WiFi Hotspot on Public Telephone

On 20 May 2014

Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...

announced its collaboration with Fon. On 30 June 2015 Telstra Air was launched, granting home broadband users access to the Fon network.

Vodafone (Spain)

On 22 April 2015 Vodafone Spain entered into a partnership with Fon at the same time Vodafone Italy announced their collaboration.

Vodafone (Italy)

On 22 April 2015 Vodafone Italy entered into a partnership with Fon at the same time Vodafone Spain announced their collaboration.

Awards and Recognition

* 2008: Awarded “Most Innovative Wireless Broadband Company” for its partnership with BT at the Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards 2008. * 2013: “Best Next Generation Wi-Fi Device/ Application Award” at the

Wireless Broadband Alliance Founded in 2003, the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) undertakes programs and activities to address business and technical issues, as well as opportunities, for member companies. WBA work areas include standards development, industry guidelines, ...

(WBA)’s WiFi Industry Awards 2013 for the new “Fonera: a social WiFi router”. * 2014: “Best WiFi Innovation Service” at the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA)’s WiFi Industry Awards 2014 for the

Gramofon Gramofon is a record label and event agency founded in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2003. It's the biggest music label of alternative music in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since 2003, Gramofon has organized more than 200 concerts and music even ...

. * 2014: First European operator to be certified with as a “Premier” participant, the highest level of the Wireless Broadband Alliance’s Interoperability Compliance Program (ICP).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fon Wi-Fi providers Telecommunications companies of Spain Custom firmware