If you follow Internet business news, you’ve already heard about Google and Skype funding FON. If not, read this by founder Martin Varsavsky. Today there are roughly 30,000 public WiFi hot spots in the world. FON wants to make that 1M+ within four years and they have a plausible approach to achieving that objective.
Looking at the regulated and highly political nest of vested interests that makes up the current US broadband access landscape, I get depressed — especially as meaningful political change can take decades. So, engineer that I am, I hope for a technology solution. FON addresses just part of the needed solution, but to the extent FON fosters the spread of WiFi access, that puts competitive pressure on mobile operators’ data plans. Every little bit helps.
What I found particularly encouraging (from a US point of view) was this comment from Martin Varsavsky,
I had never been to Silicon Valley until FON came about. Showing up from Spain with a business plan in my pocket and getting the support of two of the largest internet companies in the world in less than one month made me realize how it is that American dominates the internet. It´s all about willing to take risks. In this case what was unique was how rivals got together to collaborate at FON.
That’s why, despite ranking 16th or 19th in the world for the percentage of households with broadband Internet access, the US still leads in fostering new Internet applications. I look forward to some European assistance from FON in disrupting our access markets.
Speaking of web applications, Paul Kedrosky points out this wonderful montage of Web 2.0 company logos.
http://flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/93136022/
Posted by: brough | February 06, 2006 at 03:41 PM