Just how does FON plan to steal away Starbucks Internet users? By offering FON wireless routers, also known as "La Foneras," free to anyone who lives above or next to a Starbucks. The routers, which usually cost $40, split an Internet broadband connection into two wireless signals--one for personal Internet use and the second for public use, which can be accessed by anyone within range for $2 per day.

 

The routers' owners get to pocket half of the sign-on fee, and FON takes home the rest. Starbucks refused to comment directly on the FONbucks campaign, but a Starbucks spokesperson said any increase in the number of WiFi hotspots is "a good thing." T-Mobile also declined to comment on the program. The idea behind FON is to build the world's biggest WiFi network from the bottom up by encouraging the world's 300 million broadband customers to buy La Fonera routers and share their wireless access with other FON subscribers.

 

The goal: to have one million global WiFi “hotspots” by 2010 accessible to all so-called Foneros, or members of the FON community. Currently, there are over 300,000 hotspots in Europe, Asia and the U.S.

 

FON was founded in November 2005 by Argentine telecom and new media entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky, whose brainchildren also include Jazztel Telecommunications, now the second-largest publicly traded telecom company in Spain, and the Internet portal Ya.com, which Varsavsky sold to Deutsche Telecom subsidiary T-Online in 2000 for 550 million Euros ($722 million).

 

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