In this article we’re reviewing the La Fonera wireless router and examine the idea behind its conception. With more than 300 000+ active routers in place, it could dramatically improve internet availability. Will it succeed? It is all up to you.
La Fonera next to an iPod touch, a Sony Ericsson W910i and the AC adapter.
Share Your WiFi
Before we jump in, lets familiarize ourselves with the company. Fon was started in 2006 by a well-known entrepreneur, Martin Varsawsky and is currently backed by Skype, Google and BT (British Telecom). The company hopes have as much as a million active routers by 2010 – which would mean extensive WiFi coverage for metropolitan areas and city centers – for free.
A map of active routers in Manhattan, New York available here.
The concept is quite simple: you share a fraction of your internet bandwidth at home and in return get free access to other routers around the world. If you don’t have a Fonera router you need to buy a cheap day pass or watch an ad to surf the net. And, if the owner of the router lives near a popular location such as a Starbucks – he can even earn money from the 50% cut Fon gives on every Pass sold.
Hardware: La Fonera
While the device itself looks unimpressive compared to the goal it’s trying to achieve, to share your internet connection securely, it is really a feat of engineering and design. When I opened the package I was impressed to see a very small device – no larger than an iPod touch or classic – with a simple white design that might have very well been created in the Apple labs.
In the box you’ll find a power adapter, the omni-directional detachable antenna (2dBi with RP-SMA connector) and a white flat standard Ethernet cable. The cable comes in handy if you need to connect the router to the computer for diagnostics or to the cable modem, Ethernet switch, etc. You can use any Ethernet cable with the La Fonera – it auto-negotiates transmissions even without a crossover cable. I was a bit disappointed that the router offered only one Ethernet port, making network attached storage devices useless without an additional network switch.
The Fonera is built by Accton with an Atheros chipset which offers 802.11b/g for a maximum of 54 Mbps with WEP/WPA/WPA2 authentication and AES/TKIP encryption. The device measures 93.5 mm x 25.5 mm x 70 mm (excluding antenna).
You can easily configure the router from a Web-based interface, by connecting to the private signal (SSID). The interface is clearly laid out and instructions are available if the network fails for some reasons – including clearly written troubleshooting tips. Power users will certainly find that some of the settings on more advanced DD-WRT routers are not available through the standard official firmware. They can, however trick the La Fonera into using a hacked version which unlocks a wealth of new settings, such as the useful bridge mode and advanced statistics.
You wouldn’t expect much range from a little antenna – but the La Fonera did quite well covering my apartment, with no black spots and enough throughput to sustain a feature film streaming in SD, in XVID format and a DVD mounted on a virtual drive and shared via the network.
One annoying thing about the La Fonera is its closed DNS system – the router is set up to use FON’s DNS servers and cannot be changed; this disables PPTP VPN solutions and can cause some privacy concerns. This is necessary for the Free WiFi function to work properly.
The La Fonera isn’t the only router offered by Fon; they also have the La Fonera+ which offers an extra Ethernet port and the La Fonera 2.0 (currently in beta) which offers 2 Ethernet ports, an USB connector and a platform for developing and running applications such as bit torrent and photo uploads – an innovative feature for a router. They also plan on including compatibility with USB HSDPA modems, storage and printer sharing via the USB port.
We’ve got invites for reduced priced routers – so send us an email an we’ll send one to you.
Conclusion
La Fonera is a decent router, for a very small amount of money. FON’s innovative business model could dramatically change the way we think about WiFi and internet access. At the end of the day, it’s all about consumer choice – and if this proves to be as successful as its creators want it to be – it will definitely bring a lot of value to its customers. Go to FON.
I’d like to hear from fellow Fonera users, how their experience was so far, and questions from those still holding out.
I’d be in, the coverage in my area looks good, though not so much in the city centres for some reason, but the router looks a bit restrictive. Maybe if I set up my main router to share the connection to a Fonera but that might start to get a bit messy with my network. At the moment though I get free wireless from universities so it’s not such a big thing yet.
@bigbluealien If you’ve got a little time to spare, you could try to hack it with DDWRT.
Talk about Apple you’ve got to get some fanboys. Liked the review, considering getting the La Fonera for home.
I'm having problems with the comment plugin – comments are disappearing. I guess it's a sync problem. Should have things fixed soon.
Now, if this did in fact become very popular I think the internet would be a whole new place, because people that aren't really serious about using it would be able to quite easily (and freely) get online.
Great post.