So a while back on Digg I found a news item covering some company called Fon giving away free wifi routers. Digg often gets various links to free after rebate deals, and I didn't really need a router, but I followed the link anyways. Turns out it wasn't quite what I thought it was.
Fon is a little Spanish outfit with a fairly simple idea. Chances are, you're already paying for internet access. Why pay for net access again when you're away from home? For $30, they'll sell you a small, simple 802.11g capable router. The router offers up two ssid's, one public and one wpa encrypted private. The public one lets other Fon users access the internet for free, or if they're not sharing their wifi, they can pay a $3 fee to get a day pass. The private one acts like any other wpa wifi access point, allowing you to access the net without broadcasting your filthy details to the world.
The free deal has passed, but there is a deal where current Fon users can send a router to someone else for free, so if you want one, let me know. The big attraction for me is not so much the potential of free wifi as it is the ease of letting others borrow mine. No more passing out wpa keys or typing in long strings of hex. If someone wants to use wifi at my house, I just give them a temporary guest login to the Fon router. It lets you create several to loan out to guests, so they don't have to pay the $3/day fee.
All in all a nifty little device. It even works seamlessly plugged into my existing router. Great way to add wifi if you for some reason are still using an old non-wireless router.
