In Heise.de and Golem.de is going on a hot discussion about the appearing on the market of a new router model produced by Fon with the additional functions with the support of RapidShare and Youtube. I don’t want to talk about the new features, as they have already been described in details. I would like to share with my experience by using Fon to contribute the actual debates, which both forums (Heise and Golem) have inflames.
Indeed, the main discussion point is that whether it is meaningful to join because in times of cheap mobile Pseudo flatrates usage of Fon service is rather cumbersome. I would like to contradict this thesis. Firstly, if one travels abroad, he is more likely to renounce to go on-line using mobile phone. Besides you will run into the risk to get the astronomical bill for the flatrate, bacause the costs of a mobile flatrate is still really expensive. Fon, however, is free for all who opens the access for other people without payment binding.
I was in France last year and found that the Internet access wasn’t free in the hotel. The access to the Internet Hotspot ran over Vodafone and costed a lot of money. Fortunately, from my room I was able to reach not only the hotspot of Vodafone, but also a Fon hotspot. So I connected to the Internet without having to pay high fees.
The targeted search for a Fon hotspot is also not as tough as it might be thought. Fon offers to download from its website the Fonera locations as POIs for navigation devices. If you have got the intends to travel abroad, you have to download an updated list of hotspots. The search for a hotspot with the help of a navigation device is not particularly difficult.
Finally, one can say that Fon may be useful when from time to time you travel abroad.