Newsletter JAN08

San FONcisco: Bringing FON to the Castro District

The world famous Castro neighborhood is now being draped in FON WiFi signals. Castro residents and businesses will receive a free La Fonera WiFi router, and together will turn the entire Castro into a place where you can always get connected – whether it’s surfing the web, checking email, using your iPhone or other WiFi device.

FON is working with local residents, businesses, the Castro district supervisor Bevan Dufty, the SF Bay Guardian (weekly independent newspaper) and other local community groups, to cover the Castro in WiFi.

Learn more about the initiative or just check us out at Share the Castro. Stay tuned for fun ‘Cher’ ‘sharing’ videos!

And the Winner is . . .

To celebrate the FON Connection Manager for WiFi enabled Nokia phones (Nokia E60, E61, N80, N91, N92, N93 and N95 models), we created a contest to give away one free Nokia N95 to our best Fonero around the world. The Fonero who connected to the greatest variety of different FON Spots worldwide between December 1, 2007 and January 15, 2008 would win the Nokia N95!

With a Nokia N95 and the free FON Connection Manager, this top Fonero can now automatically connect to the strongest FON WiFi signal in range and easily locate and connect to FON Spots all over the world. It can even save mucho dinero when making free calls with the Nokia phone using FON WiFi!

And the winner is . . . YuanTing Hsu from Taiwan who connected to more FON Spots than any other Fonero on the WiFi Planet. Congratulations!

Love is in the Air!

Keep your La Fonera online, and on Valentine's Day, you'll be eligible to win one of the 50 WiFi Frames. We'll give them away to those who show their love by sharing their WiFi!

Don't forget to check your La Fonera status to make sure you're sharing! There's still time to get your La Fonera online and win a WiFi picture frame! Get your WiFi heartbeat pumping and sharing the love!

For more details, check out the Contest Rules

The City Library of Izegem in Belgium is our first FONtastic public library in Europe. The library’s visitors can bring their laptops, surf the net and send emails for free. The FON WiFi signal covers the library’s lobby, Reading Room, Meeting Room and Exhibit Hall.

“Since we added FON WiFi, our visitors no longer need to wait to use one of the few available computers we keep for accessing the internet. They can bring along their own laptops and save online research directly onto their computers. We’re also doing something innovative and are the first public place in Izegem to offer free wireless internet access. FON WiFi makes using our facilities so much more comfortable and an even more ideal place to work and study for everyone!"

-- Nicolas Cappelle, Head Librarian

German and Carolina from Proyecto Digital in Aranjuez, Spain sent us this virtual tour of their office with FON Spot included.

Give yourself the Name you Deserve!

If you have not given yourself a FON Nickname, then every time you connect to a FON Spot or send a Fonero Message you’ll be assigned an automatically generated Nickname composed of random letters and numbers.

To have your own unique Nickname for travelling the WiFi Planet, login to your My FON and click “My Personal Info” in the red menu bar on the top of your screen. Then click the red “My Public Info” bar. In this section, you can upload a picture to identify yourself, enter a welcome message and URL address for your FON Spot, create your own Nickname, and provide other your birthday and gender if you wish to.

In the box “Nickname” enter the nickname you wish to use to identify yourself across the FON WiFi Planet. If the Nickname you wish to choose is already being used by another Fonero, we’ll ask you to select a new one.