Last year I signed up to FON and purchased a La Fonera Wi-Fi router.
The FON project is a simple Wi-Fi sharing project. If you give other FON users access to your internet connection then you have full access to all the other FON hotspots. You can either flash your current Wi-Fi router with the FON firmware, or purchase a discounted router from the FON shop. You have full access to your Internet connection using a WEP/WPA secured connection and other FON users and your guests can access the internet using an open connection and a simple logon screen.
If you are interested in participating then I have some good news. Normally the La Fonera costs around £20. But FON is giving away 2500 free in the UK to celebrate it’s first birthday.
People can also pay to use the FON network, and this pays for the router discounts and freebies. If you don’t want access to the FON network then you can instead receive money from paying customers using your connection.
Before jumping in I do have some points to consider, but do remember I considered them and have jumped. The bandwidth of the public connection can be throttled so other users will not overly impact on your connection, but I can not recommend participating in the project if you pay for the bandwidth used, or have a low limit to you usage. It is also worth noting that not all ISPs allow you to share your connection in this way. Finally I don’t recommend using the Wi-Fi router and hard wired machines unless you know how to secure those machines fro possible hackers.
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