I had blogged about FON more than a year ago and it’s great to see them grow from strength to strength. Today they’re in the news together with BT announcing a joint venture in a bid to penetrate the UK market. The details of the deal are still a bit unclear, but from a technology point of view this is an awesome idea. It seems like inklings of this deal have been around for a few months, but it took some time for the details to be worked out.
From a technology point of view, this news is just awesome. FON‘s premise is that broadband users around the country create a mini-hotspot around their house and provide access to some of their bandwidth. This gives them free access to other people’s FON-spot, and also allows FON to sell this coverage to non-FON users. BT is aiming to tap into this idea to provide a nationwide WiFi blanket, an idea I applaud. (I found out this is actually called a picocell network)