Time Warner Cable Allows Users to Create Public Hotspots

It seems free public WIFI is disappearing. A few years ago, when the technology was relatively new, I remember taking my laptop to libraries and coffee shops, turning it on, and having wireless appear, without my having to do anything. Even when the coffee shop I was visiting didn't have free wireless, there was almost always a nearby unprotected connection to mooch off of. However, now that wireless has become more popular, this is changing. Now, if someone living in New York City were to leave their WIFI connection unprotected, it would be immediately clogged by all sorts of people wanting in on the bandwidth. Now, it seems, WIFI connections are all encrypted, and you have to pay if you want access to them.

Fon, a Spanish startup company, hopes to change this, and cash in on affordable WIFI. Essentially, its model is this: give wireless routers to people who live near coffee shops, airports, parks, and other places where people need WIFI, and set them up so that people can use the connection for about $2 per day. The provider of the WIFI then gets money, Fon gets money, and the user pays $2 rather than $10 for their internet connection. Fon sold specially designed wireless routers for this purpose. Called La Fonera, they worked by splitting the connection in half: one half encrypted, for the owner of the connection, and one unencrypted, for public use. The owner of the connection could decide how much bandwidth the public connection got. WIFI users would pay $2 or $3 for a day of internet access, and the owner of the internet connection would cash in.

Unfortunately, many ISPs were not happy about this plan. Although in subscribing to broadband, you are getting a certain amount of bandwidth to do what you want with, if you make it publicly available, a lot more of it will be used than if you just used it yourself. Most ISPs thus prohibit the practice of making one's connection a public WIFI hotspot.

Recently, however, Fon has signed a deal with Time Warner Cable, by which the company's 6.6 million subscribers can make their connections public, in exchange for a portion of the revenue. In a world of $10 per day wireless connections at Starbucks, this will likely be quite a welcome development for many mobile computer users. Of course, when affordable wireless broadband comes around, Fon will be back to the drawing board.

Sources:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8OMI8E02.htm
http://gigaom.com/2007/04/02/fon-time-warner-cable-deal/