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Ärende: FidoNews 27:28 [02/05]: General Articles
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GENERAL ARTICLES
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FON, four years later.
By Michiel van der Vlist, 2:280/5555
In 2006 I wrote a series of articles about FON, an initiative to share
world wide internet via WiFi for those on the move. Now four years
later, the evaluation.
For those not wanting to page through back issues of FidoNews or read
the prequel articles on www.vlist.org/fon/, here is a short summary.
The idea behind FON was that you get one of their home WiFi routers
with special sofwtare that allows visitors to use your WiFi access
point. When you register the access point with FON, you thereby become
a Fonero. Visitors can either be paying visitors that buy a day pass,
or they can be fellow Foneros who get access for free. In return you
get free access at every FON access point in the world. Sounds good
doesn't it?
I too thought it was a splendid idea, but I was disappointed about how
it worked out, as you can read in my previous articles. In my article
of September 2006, The Search, I described a fruitless search for FON
hotspots and in my October article of that same year - The Bummer - I
gave an explanation of why the search was unsuccessful.
Now four years later, I can only report that the situation regarding
the availability of hotspots has not basically changed. Fon claims the
number of hotspots keeps rising, nearly two million now they say, but
that does not match my experience and that of others. I still have not
used the worldwide free roaming as I never found a FON access point
when I could use one. Honesty compels me too add that the last two
years I have not spent much effort in finding FON hotspots. It is a
lot easier to find an open hotspot and even if one has to pay a few
Euro to get access at a camping or a hotel, it is not worth the cost
of the fuel to go hunt for a free FON spot. On the other side: I have
sold a grand total of TWO day passes over the last four years. My
share ended up with some EUR 2 and 50 cents. The low revenue does not
bother me, I was never in it for the money anyway.
In the meantime FON seems to be steering away from their four year old
business model. At first they gave the routers away for a few Euros.
They never published how much income they gained from the so called
Aliens - people that buy day passes at a FON hotspot - but it became
pretty clear that it wasn't enough to get out of the red. So they
stopped giving away the routers and started selling them for a price
that lets them make a profit on the routers themselves. In the
meantime they have issued several new router models with added
features. The first so called Fonera had only one ethernet port, the
WAN port. The entire LAN had to be wireless. Many Foneros did not like
that. Firstly because the FON router was not powerful enough to take
care of their needs. Secondly because you want a router to be at a
convenient central location in your house, but want the access point
to be somewhere where one can get a decent range outside. There is a
conflict. And thirdly, many prefer wired LAN over WiFi for their
desktops. So many do not use the Fonera as their main router, but have
it connected to a LAN port on their main router. In that configuration
one would like to have the private wireless network to be in bridge
mode. So that it is on the same subnet as the wired LAN. But FON has
always refused to implement bridge mode. To the chagrain of the FON
community.
For the first Fonera, the Fonera Classic. there was a club of
volunteers who developed alternative firmware. Their firmware did have
bridge mode. Plus MAC address cloning. Essential for many users and
something FON refused to incorporate as well.
After the Fonera Classic, there was the Fonera Plus. It had two
ethernet ports, one WAN port and one LAN port. A great improvement,
but still no bridge mode and still no MAC address cloning. Next was
the Fonera 2.0g. It had a usb port. FON advertised it as a great
improvement, one could do all kind of things, like connecting an
external storage device and keep downloading with the router only, and
the computer off. For me it was a sign that they were moving further
away from the concept of generating income by selling WiFi. For the
usb port, you want it to be at an easily accessible place, so that you
can plug things in. While to function as a wireless access point, you
want it to be high up in the attick, or preferably in a whether proof
enclosure in the radio tower. Such a whether proof enclosuse, btw was
promised by FON as in the pipeline, but it never got beyond the
drawing board. The Fonera 2.0g was not a success, FON was unable to
make stable firmware and the support for it was dropped within a
year. Now there is the Fonera 2.0n. A router with one WAN port, four
LAN ports, one usb port and two fixed antennas. It claims to do
802.11N It sells for EUR 79. Shipping excluded.
In the meantime there was the "little matter" of FON losing a court
case in Germany, where the bottom line was that their business model
of selling WiFi was illegal. The latest FON routers have the option of
disabling WiFi sharing.
As for the Fonera 2.0n, I won't buy it. Here are the main reasons: (in
random order of importance)
o The antennas are not removable. I can not connect it to my 7 dBi
outdoor antenna.
o My ISP now has an attractive offer to upgrade to 20 Mbps down, 3
MBps up. I seriously consider taking it. But.. the FON router is not
powerful enough to handle that speed.
o I still think that to share WiFi with others, one should physically
separate the router function from the access point function.
o No support for IPv6. Not from FON anyway. With less than two years
to go in the most optimistic predictions for IPv4 to run out, I think
that one should not buy new network equipment any more that offers no
IPv6 support.
o I have no use for the advanced functions available through the usb
port. My computer that runs the FidoNet sofware is always on, so I can
use that as a print server for the network and I can use that for
receiving extended downloads if I wanted. I don't, I am not that much
of a downloader.
It looks like me and FON will be going our separate ways any time soon
now. From my POV, the experiment with sharing WiFi and getting world
wide free roaming is a complete failure. I do not expect that
situation to improve, because FON seems to realise it too and has been
moving away from that concept in favour of becoming a pure seller of
WiFi routers for the low end market. Routers that - admittedly - sell
at a fair price, but they are not what I want in a router. When I need
a new router, I prefer to spend a little more and go for a router that
gives me what I want in a router, rather than what FON wants me to
want. My next router will do WAN speeds in excess of 50 MBps and it
will do IPv6.
So I have decided the sharing experiment is a failure and I do not
like the FON routers enough to buy them for their own sake. The list
of things that went wrong between me and FON is long. Four years ago I
wondered if they would still be in business by the time I first made
use of the free world wide roaming. Well, they are still in business,
but it is not the same busines that they started out with four years
ago. Four years ago FON presented itself as a movement, a community of
volunteers that would cause a revolution by sharing their WiFi. But
FON has alienated themselves from their constituency. They didn't
listen to them, they mislead them with numbers that did not add up,
etc, etc. The straw that broke the camel's back is that some six weeks
ago they replaced the FON forum. And they didn't bother to move the
user accounts to the new board. I can create a new account, but then
nowhere will it be visible to the new users that I have participated
almost from the beginning, that I have been a beta team member, etc,
etc. It annoys me. Perhaps it is a bit childish to make an issue out
of this and some may say I am too easely annoyed. Be that as it may
be, I have decided this is the end of a friendship. I have not created
an account on the new forum and it seems I am not the only one. I see
very few of the pioneers that were active in the old forum.
I will not pull the plug on FON tonight. I will leave my hotspot
running for a while if only out of inertia. But I will not replace it
if something breaks. I may take it down sooner. Maybe I will reflash
the old Linksys WRT54G with its original software. Or perhaps with
OpenWrt. Some versions seem to be able to do IPv6 on the Linksys. Or
maybe I will try the one of the latest products of the leading parties
like Cisco or Draytek. The Draytek Vigor 2130 seems to have what I
want...
So...goodby FON and good luck.
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INtroducing the emergcom echo
By Richard Webb, 1:116/901
THis echo was begun in May of 2007 to give interested emergency
communicators a place to discuss tools and techniques that will
improve one's effectiveness in using radio communication devices to
get or render emergency assistance.
The echo moderator is a very active ham radio operator who has been
involved in efforts to provide emergency and disaster assistance for
over three decades.
With the wide availability of various unlicensed radio services many
have access to emergency communications capabilities that were
formerly available only to folks with a real interest in the subject.
HOwever, to utilize them effectively one must know which methods are
most likely to render satisfactory results.
THOse little frs portable radios can save a life when boating,
camping, on family outings, and at home or work. Groups such as REact
international have expanded their activities to provide monitors on
FRS channel 1 to provide such assistance. IN some neighborhoods
residents have banded together and established localized networks
using these radios to render mutual assistance.
Many people also find themselves involved in volunteer organizations
such as search and rescue groups etcetera. though their primary
function in these groups is not communications they can still benefit
from tools and techniques discussed in this conference.
Emergcom is an echo for radio amateurs; react members; search and
rescue volunteers; public safety dispatchers and professionals.
DUring widespread emergencies and disasters the regular communications
infrastructure is one of the first things to go down. Amateur radio
operators have a longstanding tradition of being ready and available
when this occurs. These days groups such as react are also called
upon to fill the void. THis echo is a place for both amateurs and
professionals to discuss any and all aspects of emergency
communications using radio.
EMergcom is available from all z1 hubs as well as in other zones, and
can be a welcome addition to your bbs. If you're not currently
carrying this echo send an areafix request for it to your uplink
today. YOur users will find it useful, and echo participants will
benefit from the perspective of your users who work in the field.
VOlunteers and professionals are equally welcome.
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