Fon Wireless
Fon Wireless Ltd. is a for-profit company incorporated and registered in the United Kingdom that provides wireless services. Fon was founded in Madrid, Spain, in 2006, by Martín Varsavsky where it headquarters most of its operations. Fon started out by building its Wi-Fi network through devices called "foneras". Members, whom the company called "Foneros", agreed to share a part of their bandwidth as a Wi-Fi signal, so that they could connect to other members' hotspots. As the company evolved, it shifted its focus to working with mobile operators and telecommunication providers, and expanded from deploying residential Wi-Fi to providing access and technology to carriers and service providers. Fon claims to operate a network of over 20,000,000 WiFi hotspots. Fon has subsidiaries and branch offices in the United States, UK, Brazil, France, Germany and Japan. Its investors include Atomico Ventures, Google, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Skype. 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 “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 networks. 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. In November 2007, Fon deployed its first wifi rollout, and continued using this foundation with more telco partners in the years to come. 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. In 2016 the company evolved to include premium networks such as airports, hotels, convention centers, public spaces, etc.
