Newsletter NOV07

Celebrating FON on your Nokia Phone with a Free Nokia N95

The Nokia N95 is more than a phone. It allows you to connect to the internet with FON, take pictures with its 5 Mega pixels camera and upload them directly to Flickr using WiFi!

The FON Connection Manager is a free tool developed for WiFi enabled Nokia phones (Nokia E60, E61, N80, N91, N92, N93 and N95 models). The tool allows you to connect one of these phones automatically to the strongest FON WiFi signal in range and to easily locate and connect to FON Spots all over the world. It can even save you mucho dinero when you make free calls with your Nokia phone using FON WiFi!

To celebrate, we're giving away one FREE Nokia N95 to our best Fonero around the world. This is how it works: Starting today, you have until January 15, 2007, to connect to as many different FON Spots worldwide. Obviously, connecting to your own FON Spot doesn't count! You're all welcome to compete for the prize, those who share and connect for free and those who buy FON Passes. Use FON, user our FON Spots and the one who connects the greatest variety of FON Spots will receive the prize. We’ll announce the winner in our January Newsletter! Click here for Contest Rules.

FON, Coming to a Neighborhood Around You

The City of Geneva and FON have recently announced a joint project to provide free WiFi access to the city's residents and visitors. Starting this month, 500 La Foneras will be distributed to Geneva residents who have a broadband connection at home and have signed up for the project.

This Geneva project is part of our residential strategy to provide 100% WiFi coverage in major cities worldwide. With other initiatives like ChuecaWiFi ( www.chuecawifi.com) in Madrid's hip Chueca neighborhood where we now have almost 90% FON WiFi coverage, the response on the street has been tremendous and people are connecting literally everywhere throughout Chueca.

With the help of communities around the world, other neighborhood projects are following suit to replicate the Chueca experience: Munich (http://www.glockenbachviertel.com), Rome with Trastevere WiFi, Paris' Quartier Numerique, San Francisco, Tokyo, Taipei, and Hong Kong. By the end of the year, we're looking to offer great FON WiFi coverage within these areas and are counting on the support of the FON Community to give us a hand. So if you'd like to take part in any of these projects, please contact us here.

Travel Everywhere meets WiFi Everywhere

Here at FON we not only love sharing with you news about FON, Foneros around the world, or fun WiFi widgets, but occasionally come across some other community powered idea that we get excited about and want to introduce you to. That's the case with 'Everywhere' magazine!

Everywhere is a new community-generated magazine for people who want to share stories about first-hand travel experiences. The heart of Everywhere is http://www.everywheremag.com, a site where anyone can submit and vote on their favorite places, photos and stories to be published in the magazine. The Everywhere community votes help decide what goes into each issue, and if your photo or story is published, you will receive $100 plus a free subscription to Everywhere magazine! The Everywhere community believes that travel is all around you - not just something you do once or twice a year - so members can submit photos and stories about places in their neighborhood, or from exotic vacations around the world. (Kind of reminds us of how we like WiFi around the world, but also next door.) So, next time you're taking your WiFi somewhere, check out http://www.everywheremag.com to find interesting new places, travel tips and more!

Top Fonero of the Month

Jon is a professional accountant and, as he says, a part time Geek, living in New Castle, England!!

I first came across FON when it received its first initial funding round from Skype, Google, etc. I decide to join FON for its simplicity. It's brilliant. In the same way the first telephone was useless, the second had value and the third exponentially more. FON demonstrates the power of the network in a social world!! This is becoming increasingly more evident with the rise of social networks. Being a Fonero gives me the ability to be online and be network neutral. There is a continuing debate about networks and handsets etc. In the UK there is a greater collaboration between mobile operators. Why not take the next logical step and create an open system and compete on service and value?

Thanks Jon!

Making your FON Spots more visible for Foneros!

In the box your La Fonera comes in, there are two stickers. The small sticker can be placed on your mailbox or in a street light close to your apartment. The large one can be put in your window and be visible from the street. Your fellow Foneros will see the sticker and know that your FON Spot is in range!