San Francisco, which is getting an unofficial “free” shared WiFi network courtesy of Meraki, is now getting some competition courtesy of FON.
FON is calling on all residents of San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood to set up and share FON WiFi nodes. Any qualifying resident or business owner of the Castro is eligible to receive a free La Fonera wireless router, including installation. Everyone who shares gets free access to all hotspots created by the community. Castro residents can request their free router at SharetheCastro.com.
By everyone sharing a bit of their Internet connection, FON hopes to turn those wireless access points into shared WiFi hotspots for the benefit of all. FON also offers a pay subscription service. They pay you 50% of the net revenue that they get every time a visitor purchases a FON Access Pass through your FON hot spot.
In keeping with the ‘Share’ theme, famed Cher impersonator Chad Michaels was in the Castro recently giving away free routers to residents to make the neighborhood a ubiquitous WiFi zone. There is more information and videos at SharetheCastro.com.
Actually, there’s not much news here. FON has been giving away free routers in San Francisco and elsewhere, for some time. But FON’s SharetheCastro theme seems like clever marketing. Maybe (BrokeBackWiFi.com) could work in Park City.
Fon makes money through advertising, much like Meraki hopes to do with their free Wi-Fi. But Meraki also covers the cost of the DSL line — a significant advantage. FON hopes ubiquitous coverage will make it attractive for telephone services — that’s one reason eBay’s Skype division has invested in the company.
Meraki’s Free the Net, has been testing its mesh system in San Francisco’s Mission, Lower Haight and Alamo Square neighborhoods since last spring. About 500 repeaters already are in use, providing service to 40,000 users.
Meraki plans to blanket the city for less than $5 million, compared to the estimated $14 million to $17 million EarthLink had estimated it would cost to build a city network.
What makes the Meraki proposal unique is that Meraki will pay for the DSL line that can support anywhere from 10 to 50 repeaters. With the mesh structure, Meraki also can reroute traffic to avoid any malfunctioning antennas.
Mobile ad serving specialist AdMob serves banner and text ads for more than 3,000 mobile Websites. The San Mateo, Calif., company says its network impressions grew 17.5 percent between November and December of 2007, from 1.72 billion hits to 2.02 billion.
The firm’s top market is the United States, followed by India, South Africa, and the U.K. AdMob’s vice president of marketing, Jason Spero, notes that Indonesia is now AdMob’s fifth largest market and that the company is planning to launch dedicated French, German, and Spanish sites in the first half of 2008.
The top device that AdMob serves in the U.S. is the Motorola KRZR. Apple’s iPhone is one of the fastest growing devices on the AdMob network, however, the company says.
