FON Technology S.L. is a company of British law, registered in Spain. Owners of broadband internet connections and compatible WiFi routers (currently Linksys WRT54G/GS/GL versions 1x to 4x, though FON claims more are to be supported in the near future *) can participate in the FON network by installing FON's firmware on their routers. They will be called foneros and foneras.
Any mobile computer equipment within the range of the foneros' router then has instant internet access via FON. In return, the participant gets:
Based in Spain and led by Martin Varsavsky (founder of Jazztel), FON first presented itself at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, held between January 24-26, 2006 in the United States. At present, the software is still in Beta phase.
FON has received potential financial support by Google, eBay and Skype, Index Ventures.
Participating in the FON network might sometimes conflict with the terms of use of some ISP's; but FON has made an agreement with some ISPs to allow DSL-sharing.
Martin Varsavsky aims to "build a global standard for sharing WiFi" (*).