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The real FON statistics – lies, manipulation or fantasy
Posted by Mike on September 25th, 2006On September 14th, FON launched the new version of their online mapping service, after several months of complaints from users that the service wasn’t up to scratch, and announcements stating the development team was working on the problem.
On a first look, the maps look really nice – they use Google Maps, by default in the mixed view, where you see a satellite image and an overlay of roads and placemarks. I will not bore you with the details, as it is better that you check them out yourself and make up your mind.
This post is not intended as a review of the service itself, but rather, a revelation of the real figures behind FON’s network – peeking under the layer of PR and flamboyance. Martin Varsavsky is always boasting about FON being the largest WiFi community of the world – in my view, this is not accurate.
During months, FON has been claiming to be a “movement”, with a marked communist image behind (the marching workers, the spray-painted logos, etc.). This movement was supposed to kill mobile operators, who currently oppress people with their sky-high tariffs. We could go into a long debate just on this topic, but lets move on. During all this time, FON has suffered untold problems with staffing, PR mini-scandals, shipping broken routers or taking weeks and months to even send them out, not replying to repeated requests to support@fon.com, and blatantly ignoring the public forums, where the community behind the movement was expressing its increasing anger and frustration.
The blinding truth – less than 3.700 routers online worldwide
Digging a bit deeper into the workings behind the maps, I have found that there is a method to run a query to retrieve all the hotspots in FON’s database, not just two hundred, or those in a particular region. If you want to see an example, click here. This is a query that will return all hotspots on the planet that have been FONing home during the last hour. It can take a little while to load, so be patient. Until a couple of days ago, results were returned in XML format, which has been dropped in favor of the new plain, comma-delimited format.
I predict that FON will not like the above link, and thus will try to either change the format of the php call, or add artificial records to confuse the application I have written to process the data. First, I wrote a simple application using RealBasic (having been a long-time Visual Basic acolyte, it is a welcome change, allowing me to code under Mac and Windows transparently) – source code here. A screenshot of a full run is shown below.
Just from the details shown after the run, a few enlightening facts surface:
- The highest user ID found is 92.192, but the total amount of processed records is only 55.384. I have to investigate a bit further, but it appears that in some cases, a record is stored twice, once holding the user type (Linus, Alien or Bill), and again holding the router mode (online or unknown). This is the reason why some people see both the orange dot and the green halo on their locations at maps.fon.com, and also the reason why at this time I cannot confirm that the real number of Foneros is 43.896.
- There are only 3.674 routers online on the entire planet. So much for the largest WiFi community in the world. The other 7.814 are registered routers, from which nothing has been heard during the last hour. These figures have been checked a few times during the last few days, and they stay more or less constant.
- Out of the entire user base, only 1.317 have become Bills. So much for milking one’s WiFi.
- The highest router ID found in the results was 19.889, so if we add offline and online routers (best case scenario), then around 8.401 routers have never been registered, representing 42.2% of sold routers. Extrapolating this to the 1 million routers Martin wants to sell would results in a loss of $10.55 million!.
Looking at the per-country statistics (per-city could be made, given some extra time and coding), some curious details also stand out:
- There are two registered routers in Afghanistan – but neither is online. Not surprising, considering the amount of explosives that have been dropped on the place.
- China and Taiwan have 9 routers registered, but none online. Martin was blogging about his expansion into Asia, which looks rather bleak right now. 165 Foneros are registered however.
- Germany and Spain have around the same number of registered routers, although Germany almost doubles Spain in the number of online routers.
- The United States ranks third in number of registered and online routers, however, it holds the highest number of Bills (408). The next is Germany, with 237.
Finally, we can derive a few figures from these numbers. These are highly interpreted, and must be taken as theoretical extremes.
- If FON sold one $3 one-day pass every day of the year on each of the online routers, it would make a gross income of $4 million. This is before tax and the Bill’s share where applicable. You at the back, stop giggling!
- Making a wild assumption that each router’s signal reaches 100 people, FON would only cover 0.11% of Germany’s population of 82 million.
- Boingo gives you access to 45.000 hotspots. FON has about 8% of that figure, and with location quality debatable – it is a fact most FON hotspots will not be optimized for even street-level coverage.
I believe it is time for FON to stop boasting about having the largest WiFi community in the world, and start concentrating on its real problems. And if they still don’t know what these are, they have a nice summary at the online forums. Besides, for spending 500.000 Euros per month, this is a pretty poor show, in my humble opinion.
Below you can find a few pie charts representing the statistics produced. You can download the original Excel sheet here (minus the graphs).
32% of routers online is not such a good show.
What really surprises me is that the UK is so far behind. This is a distribution of registered users, that is, those that once were online, but have never been heard of since.
No surprises there, other than as mentioned the difference in online/offline ratio between Germany and Spain.
Finally, it is evident that the Bill model has not motivated many users. Lies? Manipulation of the facts? Fantasy? You decide!
Holy smokes! that really leaves room to improve…what an opportunity! why don’t they just “love” their people and attract users?
you link to the query of fon maps has been allready deleted.
Quick response , remarkable !!!
Hi dema,
Yes indeed – very fast, I wish they had responded just as fast to the many support inquiries they receive from their users. Watch this space, I am going to email them about a more serious issue than this, let’s see how they respond. Since it is security-related, I will follow the standard disclosure procedure.
Regards,
Hello Mike,
impressive what you have done.
Don´t need anything more to declare Fon 100% vaporware.
Take in mind that this +3000 online routers mean not “accesible” hotspots.
Perhaps 50% of them are not usable by other Fon users…
So we have around 2% of this 90.000 hotspots really in use.
Interesting! I am surprised Martin has not fired his country managers yet! The highest number of Bills, and that only 408 in US!
At this rate FON has lots of challenges!
[...] Descubro vÃa meame.net un artÃculo de Mike Puchol, en el que se habla de la mentira o del Vaporware que es FON. Leo comentarios a favor, y otros en contra, yo para empezar a enterarme de los detalles me he decidido a ser un FONero, creo que es lo mejor para tener una opinión más centrada. [...]
Hi Mike, thanks for your work, we are preparing our response to it. The key element in this response is that we can´t detect whether the routers that are on but use the early releases of the Fon software. So we are showing in dark green only the new installs.
who pays you for ths inaccurate analysis ??
Hi Martin,
Thanks for your clarification, and looking forward to the response – this may explain the differences shown in the analysis. What got me most worried was the gap between the largest IDs (20k routers and 92k users) and the records in the database.
Oh, and you need a detox course on that Nokia N80!
Regards,
Mike
[...] Lo que parecia que iba ha ser la comunidad mas importante de Wifi, se queda simplemente en venta de humo…un articulo de tech.am que puedes consultar AQUI te dejara con los ojos como platos… [...]
Hi volpert,
For clarification, nobody pays me to write this blog. It is mine, paid with my own money, and with no strings attached.
As for my employer, the chronology of events is as follows:
1. I joined FON, after being involved with wireless technologies for many years (early years of wardriving, moderator at Netstumbler.org, written book, etc.).
2. Could not get the Linksys router to work, and simply gave up. I tried a second time, and gave up completely.
3. A new venture’s CEO approached me to probe my interest in becoming the CTO, and I accepted.
4. The same day, I posted publicly on this blog, and on the english and spanish FON boards, my leaving FON for ethical reasons – my new job would make it unethical to continue participating in FON, or writing on their boards.
This means that while I will never post anything else on FON’s boards, or attempt to lure someone to do so, I am completely free to write about whatever I wish on my blog. I have some strong thoughts about FON, and I have seen a lot of anger and frustration on the forums, all mostly unanswered.
Lastly, I would invite you to elaborate further into why the analysis is innacurate – I put many hours into it, and I double-checked everything many times over. I even had to change the algorithms when they switched from XML to comma-delimited halfway through the exercise. Since I have no access to FON’s raw database, it is true I could not have factored some “extra” data living somewhere else, not accessible through the maps API. However, I think this is unlikely, why would then records come up (Linus, Bills, Aliens, etc.), for many different countries, with no aparent limit?
If FON really kept part of the database offline, their explanation will be welcome, as Martin commented just before you.
Regards,
Mike
[...] Ho tenia que posar: The real FON statistics – lies, manipulation or fantasy. Al final resultarà que si que era un bluff [...]
[...] En otro orden de cosas pero sin abandar el tema Fon , a través de menéame he llegado a un artículo en inglés de Mike Puchol en el que hace una dura crítica a Fon. [...]
[...] La realidad es que el proyecto no parece cuajar del todo. A pesar de que se autodeclare como “la mayor comunidad Wifi del mundo”, en este blog se han tomado las molestias en mirar las tripas de FON. Y han descubierto, entre otros datos, que sólo hay 3.700 routers usando FON en todo el mundo. [...]
You must really have strong feelings about FON, spending so much time on a rant.
I haven’t seen any claim like “FON hosts the largest WIFI hotspot network” but maybe I just didn’t see it and it was claimed.
Regarding the analysis:
It would be interesting to know at which exact times of the day you ran your analysis.
Even though FON asks users to run their routers 24h/day I assume that many home users will only run it during the day or while they actually use their computer at home. A more usefull analysis would check how many of the routers were online during an important percentage of daytime (of the particular time zone).
Maybe you could make your data snapshots available for cross examination.
Best regards,
Joachim
Hi Joachim,
I left FON just before you joined – my feelings are strong, because I felt ignored as a FONero, and I also saw tons of people also being ignored. Does Martin even have an account on the forums? I have never seen him post there…
Back to the topic, you can see claims about being the largest WiFi community in the world on Martin’s blog – the big problem is FON’s lack of clear distinction between what is a hotspot and what is a FONero. For many months, a FONero equaled a hotspot, the only disclaimer being present in the old maps, where you were told that maybe some of the points you were seeing were not really hotspots.
I ran the analysis since the September 18th, for various days, and at various times of the day. The active-only (i.e. seen online during the last hour) query invariably returned between 3.300 and 3.700 routers. The query ran with registered and online routers returned around 11.500 records.
I agree that a more profound analysis would have been to run the query once an hour, compare the router IDs, and get a clear picture of the variance of online status. Over say 48 hours, the picture could have been more accurate. Unfortunately, the php method I was using no longer works (I think they have limited the range of lat/long that can be sent in a query).
As for the snapshots, I don’t think it would be ethical to post the entire XML files with everyone’s router and user IDs, coordinates and addresses. If FON would like to compare their snapshot to mine, they are more than welcome, however.
Best regards,
Mike
P.S. I really liked some of your contributions on the forums, such as the auto-login app and the suggestion to improve security.
[...] Now Mike Puchol aka “Mother” , yesterday has written an interesting post on the some topic , but with precious informations gathered with a special query to maps.fon.com. [...]
[NOTE: I have added this comment manually, as it was sitting in the Akismet spam folder. The person who posted it wins the Dumbest Internet User Award of the year. He either intentionally set \"viagra online\" as the username, and \"viagra@online.ag\" as his email, in an effort to throw his post in the spam bin and then claim censorship, or he *really* is a very dumb person. In any case, I browse my spam box before deleting, so if your attempt was calculated, check your calculator\'s batteries. Since you could not be bothered to properly quote, I have marked my original post lines in italics.]
2. Could not get the Linksys router to work, and simply gave up. I tried a second time, and gave up completely.
so you are a tech-spastic, its so simple….
3. A new venture’s CEO approached me to probe my interest in becoming the CTO, and I accepted.
maybe he got the wrong one
4. The same day, I posted publicly on this blog, and on the english and spanish FON boards, my leaving FON for ethical reasons – my new job would make it unethical to continue participating in FON, or writing on their boards.
ridiculous argumentation! there is nothing ethical, posting here or there, all is internet and public! there is no job on earth that stops you participating in FON, except another wlan-enterprise. then the aims you follow are clear for anyone!
This means that while I will never post anything else on FON’s boards, or attempt to lure someone to do so, I am completely free to write about whatever I wish on my blog.
no you are not, because of your self-defined so called ridiculous “ethics†– seems to be your own contructed ones…
I have some strong thoughts about FON, and I have seen a lot of anger and frustration on the forums, all mostly unanswered.
you should know, that this is a quite common attitude in forums, and does not reflect reality.. so i wonder, why you stress this here! 1 is frustrated 10.000 are happy, thats the relation i guess.
Lastly, I would invite you to elaborate further into why the analysis is innacurate – I put many hours into it, and I double-checked everything many times over.
your new job doesnt seem to satisfy you -execept they told you to do this action again FON and payed you by time and money
you should stop this non-sense actions
COMMENT ENDS HERE
No comment…
A question: In which it dates has become the study?. Is possible that it has been in August?
In summer people this of vacations.
It seems to me that officially they began in September, it will have that to give time them.
Hi kiko,
The study ran between the 18th and the 25th of September, well after the maps were launched.
Regards,
Mike
I’m dissapointed in Fon too, I’m thinking about going offline with my router, the firmware sucks and is very insecure..
[...] si bueno leete esto entonces: tech.am – early morning tech news & rants » The real FON statistics – lies, manipulation or fantasy una garcha es fon… chaus [...]
There is an article in the NY Times today covering some of the issues. Links can be found on my blog fontastic.org
Olaf
Also check out
http://wifinetnews.com/archives/006993.html
Hi, I am user of Fon from early this year, I have seen lots of evolution on it, the firmware have been upsated, the maps are now MAPS, with the info we all wanted to see, the web is now a lot better, they have a new “shop”, etc ….
So keeping in mind the fon project is still in beta stage, (as the maps) we must understant some misfunctions.
As per the maps, I find myself there, the user point (orange) and the router halo (green). Few week ago I checked and could not see the router, one hour later I saw it in place. Today I checked and haven’t seen my user orange point. All this makes me think they are stiill working hard putting all those infos together, as it is still a beta service.
As per the online routers, (as Martin say) the green routers mark mean the online routers with the 0.6.6 firmware, all those with older firmware are still foneros, they give you acces to internet as a fonero user, butthey doesn’t show on map.
So the problem in this case is the map, not the fon acces. Because of that maybe you should change the way you say some facts as true, because maybe they are somehow different. You should remark on your post that the data you used is not the real statistics, as some people think.
Well, anyway, you did a great job and very interesting point of view about it.
Pau
Hi Pau,
Thanks for your balanced comments. It is true that the data I retrieved may not have been complete (although I ran the tests over a few days to make sure I wasn’t getting mixed results); this is why I give the benefit of the doubt regarding the number of working routers, and I acknowledged Martin’s comment regarding what they class as online and registered routers. Still, there are many reports from Foneros having gone out to find active hotspots, and finding barely none. I hope they add their own statistics on the map page, once they sort out the issues they are having now (apparently, UK maps have been flaky).
Regards,
Mike
read comments too, interesting!
http://wifinetnews.com/archives/006993.html
Hi Mike,
also the big problem of FON, more than the actual access points is the signal strengh and the router situation. As the majority of us have it inside our homes near the phone connection and the computer. So maybe the next big investment of fon should be big antennas!
Pau
Hi Mike,
Let us know when you launch your Fon clone.
I would honestly not feel comfortable launching a Fon clone, in the current state it is in.
Besides, the current craze of being permanently in beta (hey, new acronym, PiB) sucks IMHO. It is nothing more than a cheap excuse that allows a company to push crappy products for months, rather than testing, launching a limited beta, then launching full-blown once the product is good and stable.
Regards,
Mike
For months I found my maps.fon.com thumbtack placed miles away from my actual address. The day of the launch of the new maps, I found it was only a couple blocks off, and was able to correct it. It showed an orange dot as well as a green blob for my active hot spot. I do not run the latest fon firmware. I run DD-WRT, and I don’t even have the “heartbeat” set to run every hour like others do. I run it manually every couple of days just to see what fon would like to slap onto my OS. Yet fon could detect my hotspot and place it properly. Now it has dissapeared and I have not seen it come back even after running the heartbeat several times. Their “failure to detect” active hotspots is not dependant on using the latest fonware. They can tell when my router is accessing their RADIUS, DNS and web servers. It appears that they are therefore actually omitting my hotspot because they cannot detect the latest firmware! Martin has either been given bad information from his maps programmer, or he is lying.
Hi AustinTX,
Thanks for the heads-up, I didn’t think about the RADIUS/DNS angle. I will follow this one up, as it is true that they could detect hotspot activity regardless of the heartbeat being present.
Best regards,
Mike
Mikel, can you explain me clearly what do you mean when you say:
“A new venture’s CEO approached me to probe my interest in becoming the CTO, and I accepted.”
“The same day, I posted publicly on this blog, and on the english and spanish FON boards, my leaving FON for ethical reasons – my new job would make it unethical to continue participating in FON, or writing on their boards.”
Are you really neutral Mike?
Thank you
[...] Read the article [...]
It is obvious that FON is just vaporware… Martin Varsavsky is trying to sell us something that we can get for free.
Hi Andres,
First, I’d appreciate it if you would please use Mike (or Miguel, in spanish), instead of Mikel.
Regarding your question, of course I am not neutral. I am angry at FON, for many reasons which I will not repeat – read my post and others, and the FON forums if you need further clarification. The fact that I took up a position at a company that may be a competitor someday will of course have a further bearing on my opinions, but I will never write or do anything unethical, or publish lies. A single post that analyzes data (even a competitor’s) cannot be categorized as a smear campaign, as Martin has done.
If my company was in such a state that I needed an outsider to come and sort things out, and get the development team moving to fix things, to admit the real situation, then I would also deserve any public slapping, wherever it came from.
I, like anyone else (including Martin Varsavsky) could be wrong, in which case I would admit to it and retract the inaccurate statements. But so far, first due to the fact that FON’s own blog confirmed the figures I reached, and secondly, after Martin’s post attacking my ethics, make me think I was probably close to the mark.
The question now would be, are you neutral enough to have the right to ask me if I am neutral?
Regards,
Mike
Mike. Is it true that u are now partner or employee of Ferran Moreno, former CTO of Airbites/Swisscom, who where intended to be 50 percent partners of FON but when google and skype appeared were wiped out from the deal by Martin?
Therefore Ferran (an probably you) is clearly an enemy of Martin. I think this should have been disclosed in the initial post, more than trying to show it as an independent analysis on a tech blog.
I don’t mean you’re not completely right it what you state in your post, but believe me your blog has lost the credibility it had. Now people will suspect about any critizism you publish.
Hi Javier,
Yes, it is true – I have confirmed this in a comment on Martin’s blog, after his rather nasty and personal attack on my ethics. I am right now an employee with a fixed-lenght contract, I do not own any part of the company, so Martin’s information was wrong, wherever he got it from.
I will not go into the story between Ferran and Martin, as there are always two sides to a story, and it is not for me to tell – you can ask him directly if you want. Personally, how can I be an enemy of someone I do not know, have never personally met, and have only seen what he posts in his blog, or news about him in various media. You assumption that competition automatically means
Regarding my own post on my own blog, which I pay for with my own money, when did I say it was an independent analysis? It is a criticism of FON’s attitude, problems, and handling of their community. I make very explicit comments on the post, maybe you should read it again.
Honestly, would you go to Robert Scoble and accuse him of not being independent enough when he was a Microsoft employee? Was he less qualified to criticise or praise on his own personal blog due to this fact? It is experience on a particular topic, fact-checking, and publicly admitting you were wrong that give credibility, not one’s affiliation to a company or ‘movement’.
In my book, what counts is being straight, truthful and honest. My post does not contain twisted facts, lies, face-lifted data, or dishonest remarks. It is a square-on criticism, backed up with a solid analysis of the data I had available. Some numbers could dance up or down, but others are patently clear. I have not made an emotional, metaphorical post about the generalities of FON, but a very targeted analysis on some very specific data. I believe I would have lost credibility if my data had been proven wrong, or FON managed to show I lied or distorted the facts willfully. But this is not the case, and the rabid response by Martin proves the point.
Martin and FON have been criticised over and over again in all sorts of media since the project got started, yet I have never seen such a response to criticism. In some cases, the attacks were basically on his person, his track record, and the whole idea of FON – basically emotional parameters, not hard facts.
Lastly, I am not sure if you work for FON or are affiliated to them in any way, but maybe you should also disclose this, as it may preclude you from judging if I gain or lose credibility. If you are affiliated to FON, is your comment honest, clean and not influenced by the one that pays your salary?
Regards,
Mike
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/28/fon_isp_concerns/
El amigo Martin Varsavsky se desacredita mas aun si cabe, cuando en lugar de rectificar o reprobar esos resultados poniendo los numeros sobre la mesa (y dejandose de tanta palabreria) ataca a alguien de esta manera.
Hasta está perdiendo el buen rollito progre.
[...] Leo en el Blog de Varsavsky la respuesta a lo escrito por Mike acerca de la “mentira” de FON. Si es como dice Martin, este Mike es un poco malo. En cualquier caso, lo mejor es leer ambas cosas y tratar de hacerse opinión. [...]
Bravo Mike! Great job! And good luck with the new venture. The c*free crew salutes you!
FWIW, maps.fon.com shows my active hotspot again; bright green, not dark. I wish I could remember whether I looked at the map before or after running the heartbeat script. FWI: I don’t have Chillispot configured to use fon’s DNS server, but rather my own ISP’s. Fon could easily force me to use their own DNS server by having login.fon.com point to an invalid IP when using any other…
Hi AustinTX,
I guess with the new Fonera it will be harder to do any of this tweaking…
Regards,
Mike
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your comment, and best of luck with your project – how many hotspots do you have already, if you don’t mind me asking?
Regards,
Mike
Heya Mike,
It’s easy counting them. Around 20, all beautifully placed downtown metro areas. We’re doubling this number next month. We’ve been seeking the sweet spot where service meets commodity before we jump on large-scale deployment. Last thing we need is yet another hotspot project without a crisp, future-sustainable vision. Thanx for your interest and wishes!
Dan
I must say I find this amazing.
Mike, you make so many acusations directed at FON and from what I see, Martin. Now it is public knowledge that your producing a rival project. Now to say your blog has become biased is a true comment to me.
Something very import, if you fund this, and handle it in your own time, and that it is in no way a joint attack by you and the company you work for, please explain why I see you responding during office hours. I mean if I was your manager I would not permit you to make such posts during hours the company was paying you for and using the office internet connection.
Could you please respond to this saying if you do or have never posted comments regarding Martin or FON in your work office during their working hours and or using their internet connection.
Juan Carlos,
If I mention Martin in my blog, it is because he is the visible head of FON, and the one that is always making the bold claims. If he delegates on a CEO or other parties in his company, and it’s them that are taking the decisions, and this becomes public, I will replace Martin’s name where applicable. So far, the only public faces of FON have been the top bloggers, Martin, with one or two employees mentioned once in a while.
Again, you insist it is a rival project – can you please elaborate *exactly* where you got this information from? It has common traits to FON due to the fact it is WiFi-related, but the approach, business model, image, and methodology for running a company are radically different. Don’t make accusations or statements you cannot back up with facts. I backed up my criticism with hard facts, extracted right form FON’s database. Can you say the same about your claims? Or you have just been brainwashed?
I imagine it took you a few hours to write your comment, and so you extrapolate this to the rest of the world. Since you have no clue about how long it takes me to write a reply, I would advise you to be careful with your accusations. You also have NO clue about the amount of hours I work in the project, my schedule, if I work full time, part time, from home, from an office, during weekends…
If my manager is unhappy about my performance in the project, he is free to fire me. But that is his decision, not yours. As long as I perform as expected, I am free to rebate Martin’s very personal attacks when I see fit.
Let’s see…
- Do you use Skype or any other chat application at work?
- Do you chat with non-work related contacts?
- Have you never received a personal call and excused yourself to take it?
- Have you never made a personal call from the company phones?
- Did you make that photocopy for personal use, or print some document for your own enjoyment?
- Ever arrived late at work, or called in sick but it was really because you had something else to do?
- Are you sure you forwarded that joke or humourous PowerPoint via email to a business contact, not some friends?
- Are you browsing the net on company time and internet connection solely for work purposes?
…shall I go on?
Before making accusations like this, look at yourself, and make sure YOU are Mother Theresa, otherwise, your words are nothing more than bullshit.
Finally, can you disclose your affiliation to FON, number of shares you have, investments you have made? It’s just for clarification you know…
Mike
Juan Carlos, mas tonto y no naces…
Hacia tiempo que no leia un comentario mas ridiculo, pidiendo explicaciones y poniendote de acusador.
Quien diablos te crees para entrar en un blog de alguien, y pedirle que te conteste si ha posteado durante sus horas de trabajo ???
Desde luego como pregunta Mike, podrias tu decirnos tu relacion con Fon???
Si tienes algo que ver es patetico, y si no eres mas que un pardillo que le sigue la corriente a Varsavsky sin mayor interes, peor.
Desde luego, con comentarios de este tipo lo unico que se entrevee es el nerviosismo de Fon ante algo que es evidente que NO FUNCIONA NI FUNCIONARÃ, y que a dia de hoy es VAPORWARE.
Sorry for posting in spanish.
But i cannot translate some of this into english.
Anyway, Juan Carlos will surely understand me
Hello Mike and Carlos.
I read the blogs from Martin and Mattias etc.
I am not employed by FON
I do not get paid or hold shares in FON
I used the term rival as everything I read from all the different forums and blogs points in the direction of ‘rival’, please correct me if I am wrong.
These are my own comments based on what I read.
No I do not use any computer at work as my work does not need me to use one
I see you find my questions ‘bullshit’, but they seem sensible questions to me.
Would any good employer pay you while you write you study of FON data or reply to comments during office hours? Does your finding of FON data help the company you work for in anyway?
You do make a big rant about FON, and a lot of time.
To me you are biased. I think you should stop while you can before your blog becomes even more of a joke (I am only referning to your FON and Martin comments here)
Also some friendly advice, try doing sport, the foto of you with Ferran (the thin one I think he wrote on the blog jeje) looks like you need to do a lot
Hi Juan Carlos,
This is turning into a stupid debate – I will never convince you of anything different to what you have already created in your mind – that I am hellbent on destroying FON and Martin, which is far from reality. I don’t find your questions bullshit, I find your words bullshit. I find it being a hypocrit to put these questions the way you have. It is fine to ask a question, but not while you question the ethics of the person you are questioning.
Anyway, as I have already explained, you have no idea about when, how or where I work (physically), so you cannot even remotely question what I do with my time.
Who is not biased? Is Martin not biased? Did his personal attack on Ferran and me not fall into the biased category? Oh, it was a very balanced, fact checked, peer-reviewed post. Sure. Have you read Martin’s attacks on Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, because he got kicked out by him? Look here:
http://spanish.martinvarsavsky.net/general/juan-luis-cebrian-en-el-paas-aconflicto-de-interas.html
Now, read this:
http://spanish.martinvarsavsky.net/general/schwab-saffo-figueres-clinton.html
Is he disclosing anything in this post? He merely bashes the WEF and everything associated to it, and then proceeds to laureate Clinton’s organization, where he is in the board of advisors. So, in my view, Martin has zero moral ground to criticise anything I do or write about.
Everyone is biased. Point me to a single blog that is not sometimes biased. Blogs are for pouring one’s minds into writing, and therefore, WILL be biased. A different matter is being unethical – and this I have not been. Again, I will put this in bold so you can understand it better: I backed my claims with hard data. I criticise FON and Martin because I think they live in different worlds. Martin flies around the world meeting interesting people and attending events in no way related to FON (tell me, is that any better than blogging on company time? I won’t dare say he does it with his investor’s money because I do not know). Meanwhile, FON keeps dragging its feet through delivery problems, tech support problems, and ignoring the very community it is trying to build.
As for your smug remark about the photo, it is true I need exercise…coincidentally, last week I started going to a gym daily. Please post a picture of yourself, and your real email, so I can write some comments about it. I doubt you won the Mister Universe contest.
Mike
Mike, why don’t you simply ban this idiot (Juan Carlos)?
It is the first time I see somebody commenting on the weight of the blog owner. Really stupid and impolite.
Go ahead, kick butt and don’t let others question your integrity!
[Deleted some babble unrelated to the topic]
Sorry but Martin has made good company in the past, ya, jazztel etc.
¿Why think he can not do it with FON?
You still never said if the data you collected would help the company you now work for… does it?
If it is not a ‘rival’, please explain exactly what it is. If it makes people share wifi, then it is ‘rival’ to FON no?
[Deleted some more babble]
Ahem…define “good”. Jazztel was on the brink of going bankrupt, they are only doing better now because of their agressive campaigns. Ya.com was sold at the brink of the dotcom bubble. I believe Martin is very good at pumping a company, then selling for millions and bailing out.
The data I collected is worthless to the company I now work for. It is only worth to those who may be blinded by Martin’s aura (like you), and cannot see through the PR.
Wait and see, when we launch, come back and tell me if we do the same FON does. Specially in how the company is managed.
Mike
De donde demonios puede haber salido semejante especimen como el tal Juan Carlos??
Maleducado, aconsejando que hagas deporte(habra que verle a el, atleta olimpico seguro), criticando lo que haces en tu trabajo,pidiendo explicaciones y encima haciendole la pelota a Varsavsky (segun dice) “gratis”…vaya tela.
Me reitero, mas tonto y no nace…
OK! now I think comments here are going south. I’d like to give Mike a hand, as a fellow tech passionate guy and wifi entrepreneur. I thank him for doing the above research and statistics! I was really questioning the marketing numbers over at Fon and data such as the above is really great! Mind you, all in disbelief, this study should only help things get more practical, ie for actual users to actually know what coverage they should expect while traveling. Moreover, help the aforementioned company improve its stuff. Should it all look gloomy in regard to fon’s corporate message, it’s arbitrary. What this guy does in his own time, is his business. I’m not involved in the music industry but that did not prevent me to research and forcast, for example!
Granted, I like fon. I like any venture that helps me -personally or professionally- get connected anywhere. I’m nor in fanatically supporting Mike or Martin (like I said, I like both equally for doing something constructive). I’m looking at this !personal! blog, get some great facts that don’t insult my intelligence, and move on! Give this guy a break! He’s doing all of us a favor. If you don’t feel like that, ignorance is bliss as they say.
Dan
Hola, Mike. ¿Me podrÃas decir con qué programa has hecho los “chart pies”? Gracias.
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your comments, and it is true, I was wrong in giving in at personal and provocative comments. From now on, only on-topic comments (or as I already did, the relevant parts) will be admitted.
Regards,
Mike
Hola Juan,
Microsoft Excel, es fácil y rápido, y permite exportar los gáficos directamente como imagen.
Saludos,
Mike
[...] It has all started with Mikes in-depth analysis of FONs database feeding their maps. According to his findings only 3.674 routers have been online within the last hour (another 7.814 routers have been registered) [...]
[...] Parece que al tal Ferrán no le gustó que Martín se deshiciera de él de esa manera y ahora junto a Mike Puchol (un tio muy conocido en temas WiFi por lo visto) se han juntado para montar algo parecido a FON de nombre Whisher. El tal Mike se sacó un estudio en su blog (muy bueno y apostaría dinero a que los datos son reales) sobre el número real de usuarios de FON que ha generado mucha polémica entre Varsavsky y él. [...]
[...] In the “more fun…” menu, you have now the ability to display closet Fon access points…Nice when you are looking for a WiFi hotspot. However, does not seems so numerous, and even, seems to be very controversial (see “The real Fon statistics“) [...]
Hi,
Thanks for the interesting statistics -
First – to those people who actually believe these statistics are wrong, come off it – no company BETA or otherwise has ever managed to get the numbers users FON are claiming in such a short space of time.
Second – Can I just ask everyone here a quick question – I seem to remember reading from those who hacked the firmware to try to figure out how to create the “heartbeat” that the software has now changed – and IIRC “activity within the last hour” actually does mean a FON router that hashad actual WiFi traffic passing through it within the last hour – am I the only one who finds this to be the most stupid idea I have ever heard??
When my FON router arrives – I fully intend to sit it on it’s own isolated network, I already have multiple access points around the house and theatre liked via WDS and ethernet, I also already have a FREE* WiFi solution in place in the name of http://www.publicip.net (which IMHO is a much better solution – but of course is not as user friendly in terms of plug in and switch on) I do not intend to stop using my existing Wireless network – and I will not be using the FON router to access the internet or anything – I simply want the FON router so anyone passing the New Palace Centre can log on – the publicip.net solution not being quite as easy to log on to as the FON router will be.
I would therefore suggest that in order to to be a more effective tool for users, the FON map should be showing ONLINE routers rather than routers “with activity” – and they can’t tell me thats hard to do – because my Network Cameras, PublicIP.net box and various other bits of hardware on our network seem to be able to tell various external sources they are alive and well?
Finally – While I admire all the people who have been playing around trying to get their “modded” FON routers to work properly with the service, this is probably half of the problem, especially since “ordinary” users probably would have no idea about sticking other firmware onto the router if it wasn;t for the fact that there are very many numerous detailed articles on the forums explaining in words of one syllable exactly how to o about it. NO I AM NOT TELLING YOU OFF – I myself would probably be the sort to do something like that – especially if I was worried about the security implications using the current incarnations of FON ware! However an important point was raised in the forums that has the “modded” routers don’t actually perform the commands sent to them by FON – they merely receive them and either ignore them, send them to syslog – then they may as well not be on the map.
Quick for instance for the above bit:
FON strikes a deal with nochex.com (or a related site)
A user at a FON hotspot can now pay for their account using nochecx.com or the like.
FON sends out commands to routers to add nochex.com to the list of allowed sites.
FON routers that actually perform commands add this site to the list.
Now a user wandering around is going to get a service that is not consistent, and is essentially not a functional service (if a user doesn’t have a paypal account – but has a nochex.com account, but can’t pay via nochex.com because it isn’t in the list of allowed sites at the hotspot they are at – they can’t use the service)
The reason I mention this is because there are now services (in the UK at least) that allow us to take a card into a shop, hand money over, the money then goes onto the card and we can then spend the value of the credit on the card on various participating websites and services (benefit because should someone find out any details about the card – it is “prepaid” and doesn’t go anywhere near real bank accounts or credit cards)
Just my opinion.
* FREE WiFi we offer is 30 minutes access via a pre-printed voucher, when the customer purchases a cup of tea/coffee or a softdrink.
[...] C’est ici que ca se passe sur tech.am [...]
[...] Pero dejemos a un lado los datos técnicos, aunque hemos de recordarle a nuestro lider Fonero que la comunidad no descansará hasta ver otro firmware en La Fonera, porque es de naturaleza intrÃnseca hackear, modificar y experimentar con el nuevo hardware. Si nos centramos en las acciones de FON y la respuesta que ha tenido a la “venta” de todos esos Linksys (más potentes y con más versatilidad que la propia Fonera), nos podemos dar cuenta de que algo no funciona bien en FON. Si hace nada todo iba de perlas y FON era un éxito rotundo, ¿Porqué han tenido que cambiar de hardware, para que ahora de verdad la gente use el punto de acceso como punto FON y no pueda cambiarle el firmware? ¿No será que las cosas no iban tan bien? ¿No será que todos esos usuarios no son reales? [...]
In Paris I have tried to put Fon hotspots on my http://www.cafes-wifi.com map (only hotspots we can reach from cafés or fast foods).
Well Ihave been searching for 10 months now.
Idid found ….one !
Fon is not a serious company to my point of vue.
It was a nice try.
Hope they did not lose too much money.
Harry
Hi,
I live in Paris, France and I am a pilot, very interested by the idea developped by FON, to share everywhere in the world a WI-FI connection.
The idea is great, I loved it and I wanted to support it as “linus”.
I live on the 3rd floor in a group of 3 big buildings (12 floors each) with hundred of apartments, mine being 100 yards from the street. Hundreds of persons live close to my flat.
So I bought a router that I left connected 24/24 and 7/7. My antenna is next to the window of the terrace.
That was a few months ago.
But :
-. first I could see that nobody ever tried to connect from “my” FON hotspot, and
-. second, I had never had the possibility of connecting myself to another “FON” hotspot (never received any signal), I will cite especially the city of Madrid (Spain) as we stay there in a hotel surrounded by many, many FON hotspots located in buildings contiguous to our hotel. But no FON signal at all !
So there is more than a big problem for FON, and people like me wonder if the great and generous FON idea is technically correctly solved by FON. And my answer is no or, at least : not yet.
FON teams have to solve most urgently that geometry problem if they want to create a real world where -approximately- anywhere on inhabited land you can be through FON Wi-FI connected !
That’s the problem of the range of the hotspot Wi-Fi signal, as Pau said upper here. Is it antennas or other way ? I don’t know except it’s urgent !
And I do think they have to solve it or die, there is no other way.
Good marketing is a need, but excellent technique is a must.
Gerard
Hi Gerard,
Thanks for your comments (I removed the first and third as you requested, no worries!). The problem with antennas is that while they may give a higher effective radiated power, they will also pick up a lot more noise, which means the end result is not as good as it would seem. Placing a 7dBi omni on the router will not solve this basic problem. The only worthwhile attempts would be to direct the signal to points of interest, thus concentrating the “beam” on an area, and reducing the noise coming from the rest.
I know WISPs have a really hard time with these issues, the worst problem being that once someone pays, be it 2 Euros or 10, they want service – they don’t care that this is a ‘movement’ or that the hotspot is run by a private individual, who will not give any guarantee on coverage or availability.
Best regards, and happy flying (I’m a PPL myself, not getting as much as I would like to though…marriage, kids and planes don’t marry too well!).
Regards,
Mike
Thanks for th answer, Mike.
Gerard
whoever want to question this “rant”, go figure yourself, try to find out more.
I don’t believe in ethics so much, then I believe in hard work, and this kind of statistics sound like hard work to me.
I would like to have done such an analysis for more then one vaporware in the past, always was too busy, chatting with too many private contacts in worktime, always wanted to be helpful to the few contacts around me.
to the author: whatever motive you had writing it, some call it anger, some call it … whatever,
I’m glad you did it.
and it is like politics: sometimes it needs anger, not ethics to get you to disclose valuable information.
[...] The deal is that you have to share your WiFi connection with other registered users. That’s pretty cool, because if there are a lot of Foneros out there, then you have a good chance of using a Fon connection for free when you travel. You can use maps.fon.com to check out Foneros closest to your location. Tech.am has some “real statistics” of Foneros worldwide, claiming that Fon isn’t actually as widespread as they let you believe. Well I don’t care if there aren’t any Fon hotspots in Bangkok or Cathmandu, there are some in Helsinki and that’ll be enough for me. [...]
La tienda de golosinas de debajo de mi casa tiene más visitas que todos los usuarios de Fon en el mundo.
Lo que hace Martin es inundar de publicidad España para hacer que lo suyo tiene valor. Pero en realidad no es asi, puesto que ni siquiera la banda ancha es suya.
De la mano de impresentables como Alvy y Martin, parece que la Internet de España sólo se hable de Fon. De hecho, hasta el propio Alvy atacó a la industria de la publicidad, exceptuando a Fon.
Un desastre…
[...] It would be wrong to conclude that since Sept 25, 2006 and Jan 21, 2007, Fon has grown by approximately 48,400 hotspots, as the POI function is undoubtedly (and understandably) including hotspots that have not been active within the hour of downloading. They would not be used right away, perhaps days later after flying overseas. Mike Puchol made an effort to eliminate inactive hotspots during his investigation (just before the POI tab was yanked away the first time). [...]
[...] Whiser es una iniciativa de Air-Bites, una empresa que iba encaminada a trabajar del lado de Martin Varsavsky , pero que al parecer por algunas diferencias con su fundador, las relaciones entre Air-bites y FON no terminaron de quajar. Ferran, el fundador de Air Bites, se ha aliado con Mike Puchol, una persona que ha sido muy crÃtico con FON para crear este nuevo proyecto. Actualmente en su página principal solo hay un reloj que cuenta el tiempo que falta para el lanzamiento (apenas unas horas) [...]
Interesante. Yo debo ser un “capullo” por ser un fonero; visto lo que aquà se escribe, pero a mà me dá igua,l porque nadie ni nada me puede cohartar mi libertad para hacer con mi dinero lo que salga de las narines. Me he comprado mil router FON ( sÃ, lo he comprado, nada de regalos..), he pagado mis 29′90€ y ya está enchufado las 24 horas del dÃa. Tan sencillo como eso : el quiera que lo tome y el que no, que lo deje
Lo demás son historias de “vedettes” que no van a ningún lado. Cada uno con la suya y Dios en la de todos , que decimos en España
Saludos
David, tienes mas razón que un santo: puedes elegir lo que quieras, lo mismo puedes poner basura decorando tu casa que comprar un aparato que no sirva para nada.
Ahora nos podrÃas comentar si la fonera que has pagado la tienes de adorno o realmente alguien se puede conectar.
p.d: visto tu desapego yo cuando quieras te puedo vender cosas inútiles o inservibles.
Despues de leer todo el post en ingles y algo en español encuentro una razonable explicacion de la compra del 10% e Meneame. De donde explotaban todas las criticas para Fon antes de su compra?
[...] Detrás del proyecto esta Mike Puchol, el autor del artÃculo crÃtico con FON The real FON statistics – lies, manipulation or fantasy en el que acusaba a FON de hichar sus cifras de nodos. En el proyecto tb está Ferran Moreno de Air Bites, empresa que en un principio iba a participar en el proyecto FON. [...]
[...] No hi ha sr. Varsavsky -> Mike Puchol (crÃtica sobre FON) [...]
yo tengo mi router, mi fonera en varios puntos y me conecto bien e incluso veo que gente se conecta al mio y lo veo perfecto, si gana el varsvaski este o como se llame dinero con esto no lo creo, pero que ole sus cojones si esto continua y animo a todos a comprar en FON nada de mamarachadas como esta que faltan el respeto a los FONEROS
Y yo que pensaba que nadie se leia este articulo…me explicas en que le falto el respeto a los foneros? El que falta el respeto a los foneros es Martin, y si no, date una vueltecita por los foros de Fon y luego hablamos. Dime cuantos comentarios positivos hay y cuantos respecto a cobrar y no enviar los routers, a incumplir promesas, etc. Y esto ya pasaba hace meses cuando publique estos numeros!!
Si tu fonera va bien, pues ole! Y si la quieres compartir ademas con Whisher, pues tambien puedes, nadie te dice que tengas que dejar de ser de Fon para utilizar Whisher. Si insistes en pensar asi, es que no has entendido nada.
Saludos,
Cool
[...] Descubro en algunos blogs, la noticia de hace unas semanas relativas al nacimiento de un nuevo proyecto de redes WiFi que quiere competir contra FON. Se llama Whisher, y es un proyecto que nace en España al igual que FON, con proyección mundial. Nace con polémica con MartÃn Varsavsky (fundador de FON) que asegura que Ferrán Moreno, fundador y CEO de Whisher jamás ha trabajado en FON (ver the.next.net )El nuevo proyecto de Whisher no se basa en la distribución de routers inalámbricos como FON, sino en el aprovechamiento de los ya existentes, tan solo bajandose una aplicación que permite una vez configurado los parámetros y condiciones de acceso, abir la navegación a una comunidad de amigos cerrada o a una comunidad abierta.Coincido con la opinión de Error500 en que cada vez veo más lejos las posibilidades de éxito de FON, dada su lentitud en la distribución de routers inalámbricos, su constante incumplimiento y el no alcanzar metas visibles y concretas al menos en España (ver el artÃculo de hace unos meses de Mike Puchol que es otro de los fundadores de este nuevo start-up) . Por eso, aunque acaba de iniciar su andadura y hay pocos puntos en España, preveo un incremento exponencial de Whisher ya que tan solo se requiere descargarse la aplicación, y eso es algo que muchos probarán. Si el programa funciona, si los probadores ven las bondades de esta idea, seguro que veremos la v-doble roja en el mapa de Google, que hay en su página, inundando todas las ciuades y pueblos. Cierto es que es necesario tener un router WiFi o inalámbrico, y eso limita la expansión, pero también es cierto que la mayorÃa de los routers que se están montando desde hace algo más de un año son inalámbricos. El tiempo lo dirá, de momento bienvenida la competencia que deseamos dinamice las redes sociales y WiFi.AgradecerÃa la opinión de alguno que ya haya probado Whisher. ¿Funciona? [...]
This one makes sence “One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesstion everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”
At last!
An honest appraisal of the ridiculous SCAM that is called FON.
Sadly there are people who actually believe that FON is somehow the new Utopian movement – well there is one born every minute.
My buddy and I were Skyping (another disaster on the way, but free for now) and we noticed this FON thing – quickly examined the site etc. and then looked a little deeper, and we can easily see the financial scam going on here. (Yes, we are ex-internet CEO’s who didnt get quite enough cash from the Venture Capital guys…but thats another story!)
FON is the classic bag game – you invest tons of cash in a useless but hyped venture, the ‘losses’ are written off, the money goes into a bank account and out the other side. Its a great way to get CASH out of Ebay, Skype etc……
I want to state clearly that this really happens – yes, big biz types actually love to steal cash.
Of course, the practical application of ‘FON’ is INSANE – re-selling a wireless network down a dark and dirty street in some ugly suburb of some little town – so you settle down on a garden wall with your $2000 laptop to get ‘free’ wireless and it starts to rain and then the local kids come along and steal your laptop. Great.
Worse still, the guy whose router you are on is downloading child pornography and you get arrested. cool.
Monetize that scenario, ‘FON’ executives!
Alternative: go to Starbucks or other cafe, pay for a nice coffee and some wireless, relax in comfort and forget bad incident with ‘FON”.
What a sick comments… It’s like television: if you don’t like it, TURN IT OFF!!! I use FON almost everyday on my trips in Europe. There are a bunch of hotspots, it’s free and it works. Oh, sorry, it’s not free. It have cost me $5,00 for a wireless router.
Greetings from Holland,
Hanz
Hi, nice CEO’s comments Harry Wolf, is courious that you talk about SCAM when referring to FON. I can see fear “somehow” on that comment.
I really like your understanding Hanz, I believe in Holland there is something really deep and known about what matters.
We really do not need CEO bussiness expertise on that, we all know sturbucks is a big money maker and as per so, it integrates wifi connexion at their shops.
The main idea is to build this net, cost-free and free access, thanks to the support of volunteers that show how things can be big and done just with the effort (time, in work market) plus habilities and tech.
Tech is available in almost every home in every “developed” country (the whole word has got many blogs and discussions), people can find enough “free cost time” to work on this, as the whole FON thingy proves.
People are interested on developing ideas like that, and yes, it goes clearly against the economy rules and all the CEO’s thoughts of masters making profit… IT IS NOT A PROFIT THINGY MATES. THIS IS A GOODWILL THINGY, or how does companies REALLY measure goodwill in their organisations?
The question is, when will people be able to put their own goodwill not to serve an organisation, but to serve an idea, a great idea as i.e. FON?
I can say my life aim would be seeing that happening in my life time, rather than having as the most remarcable date in my life 11S. I take that as a signal of something begging for review.
Thanks for your time,
Juan 26
[...] TOS now, and are growing increasingly unhappy. Fon focuses on profitable router sales, and actively conceals statistics which reveal real growth, churn, and actual service availability. Fon diverts resources [...]