Some of you may have been wondering what i've been doing since i came back from Spain. I usually don't go into any details of my personal life but this time, the news is too big to ignore. The company I work for, FON, a WiFi startup that enables you to share your WiFi and connect to other access points for free or to sell bandwidth that you don't use), just landed a HUGE deal with two internet mammoths, Google and Skype. FON, brainchild of Martin Varsavsky, born only 3 months old (no kidding) was received with some skepticism and absolutely NO ONE (except hard core believers including myself) thought FON would be approached by these major league guys in the span of 90 days. Proof that the power of a great idea can go very very far.
As you know, i'm not exactly a techie and I have a social sciences background but what i really like about FON is how, on the one hand it is the classic start-up and on the other, how it truly has a lot potential in connecting people in developing countries. The social dimension of FON is best explained by blog Guru and social entrepreneur Ethan Zuckerman, in his inimitable style:
In Africa, bandwidth isn’t cheap. Entire universities run on less bandwidth than I have coming into my house on a DSL line. Being altruistic and leaving your wireless access point open in Africa is pretty much a guarantee that you’re going to end up with other users abusing the limited bandwidth you have. It’s important that African users have the opportunity to share their bandwith in a way that allows for “bandwidth shaping” - sharing some bandwidth with other users and retaining the rest for your own needs - and billing, so other users can share the cost with you. FON’s current software isn’t optimized for this situation yet, but it’s close, and FON is engaged with the issues in a serious and sustained way. I predict that FON is something I’ll be able to enthusastically pitch to African friends in the very near future.
Most of my African friends are entrepreneurs, either on a micro- or macro- scale. They’ll understand the idea of buying access to a scarce resource (a broadband net connection) and selling access to that for an affordable price faster than most Americans and Europeans will. I suspect FON will make a great deal of sense in many developing nations.
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