Glenn at WiFi Net News posts about FON and some of the issues he has with the social WiFi service that says “you share me your’s and I’ll share you mine.” On paper the concept is very good, but in reality broadband varies by installation and FON is thus a “free and best efforts” type of service in my mind.
So too as Glenn points out is the definition of a “hotspot” versus and installed FON router.
I have one in my house. It works, but its range is limited and given where the router is in my house it barely reaches the pool area or my HOA’s complex clubhouse. Using the term lukewarm vs. hotspot in the post is a very good descriptor. In my view FON needs better extended range extension built in. But with that said, the concept still is solid in my mind, only in need of tweaking in how they reach the public so it really can be called HOT.