[wsfii-discuss] [Fwd: Re: Fwd: [india-gii] wireless connectivity.. Is 802.11n the end of ethernet?]

Mon Oct 1 07:06:19 UTC 2007

michel memeteau wrote:
> it's totally different , FON is selling people bandwidth , 

Fon is not selling people bandwidth - Fon is not an ISP. Fon is
selling/giving away routers so that people can attach 'hotspots' to
their existing broadband connection (typically offered by an ISP without
any ties to Fon, and hereby also compromising the contract with the ISP
then it is probably not allowed for a private individual to share
her/his internet-connection with a generalized public).
At the same time - this gives Fon an excellent way of keeping a tap on
peoples internet use, then Fon has in the default situation complete
control over the system running on the router (which phones-home very
often). Furthermore, you as a user/owner of such a Fonera, can then
choose to offer the access for free or change money for it ....

Meraki is
> selling a service for managing your Free (or not)  mesh hotspots.
>
Yes - Meraki is selling a router (and giving away the software to manage
it). The Meraki solution is slightly more open (with ssh access and an
official serial connector). But, I still believe the end result is quite
similar to what Fon is doing (though I have to admit that Meraki has
changed it's position quite dramatically across this year - going from
being a small open 'startup', to a much more closed company attempting
to create a 'blackbox' solution).
Both parties, Fon and Maraki, are playing on the creation of a community
network, and people don't have to worry about anything - just use it.

If you read through the following:

http://sf.meraki.com/faq#question_64

it would be a good idea to start wondering: Why is Meraki, as commercial
company, so interested in "helping" people build a "community network"
(they can't be making a lot of money on selling the Meraki Mini, and
definitely not when they are given away for free, such as in San
Francisco), and why is Google and Sequoia Capital investing money in
both Fon and Meraki?

On the other hand - both the Fonera and Meraki Mini are easy to reflash
(OpenWrt Kamikaze or Freifunk runs perfectly), so if a company wants to
give them away for free (or cheaply) just grab and subvert them :-)

-- 
Gregers Petersen
DIIRWB International-Coordinator
international-coordinator at diirwb.net
www.diirwb.net

-- 
Gregers Petersen
DIIRWB International-Coordinator
international-coordinator at diirwb.net
www.diirwb.net