Spanish WiFi startup expands into Belgium
Fon members freely share or sell WiFi access, which will now be
available to Belgacom subscribers. This is the sixth deal of its kind
with a major European telecom firm.
On Tuesday, the community WiFi network company, Fon, announced it
would be joining forces with the largest telecommunications company in
Belgium, Belgacom.
Fon, which was founded by a Spanish entrepreneur in 2006, sells
customized WiFi access points and routers that make it easy for members
to sell or share their wireless Internet connection. If a user makes her
network freely available, then she will have access to all other Fon
access points around the globe.
"Belgacom will create the largest WiFi community in Belgium," said Didier Bellens, Belgacom’s president and CEO, in a statement.
Under the terms of the new agreement between Fon and Belgacom, all
Belgacom customers would gain access to Fon's four million hotspots
around the globe. Belgacom said that it would make Fon available on its
network by the end of the year.
"The deal with have with Belgacom is right now is that we put our Fon
feature into their DSL boxes and their subscribers can become Fon
members," said Alex Puregger, the company's COO, in an interview with
Deutsche Welle. "We're hoping to have hundreds of thousands of [new]
members in Belgium."
 Martin Varsavsky, Fon's CEO, wants to expand to other European ISPsFon expanding at a rapid pace
In recent years, the Spanish startup had struck similar deals with
other major European telecom providers, including E-Plus in Germany, BT
in the United Kingdom, MTS-Comstar in Russia, SFR in France, and ZON
Cable in Portugal.
Puregger described it as a "revenue-sharing" model, saying that no
money has changed hands and adding that the UK has the highest
concentration of Fon users of any country in the world so far. He also
said that Fon users should expect more similar deals with other European
Internet providers in the coming months.
With this model, Fon can undercut large commercial WiFi providers
like Deutsche Telekom, which charge as much as five euros ($7) per hour
for WiFi access in public places in Germany, especially airports and
train stations.
Fon has become a darling of the European tech scene - the company
announced just last month it had raised 10 million euros in a new round
of venture capital led by Atomico, an investment firm founded by Skype
co-founder Niklas Zennström.
Fon’s founder, Martin Varsavsky, also echoed the enthusiasm for this deal.
"We love Belgium, and we can't wait to introduce Belgacom customers
to the largest WiFi community on the planet," he added in the same
statement.
Author: Cyrus Farivar
Editor: Kate Bowen
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15194360,00.html
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