Feed yourself!
FON WiFi operator planning to deploy WiMAX
March 20th, 2007 by danFON is registered at WiMAX World Europe among other future WiMAX operators and is planning to rollout this technology. This news has not been promoted through the official corporate channels so this it’s fresh like a lime squeezed in a Corona.
Faisal Galaria, VP Business Development at Fon, will be speaking about their WiMAX plans as described in the conference program:
Thursday, May 31, 14:30Panel: Digital City Service Provider Business Models
Moderator: Roberta Wiggins, Research Fellow, Yankee Group
Panelists: Rafi Haladjian, CEO and founder, Ozone
Niall Murphy, CTO, The Cloud
Faisal Galaria, VP Business Development, Fon
Ben Murray, Head of Business Development, Seamless Mobility Solutions, Motorola Networks & Enterprise, EMEA
In the past year, a free service provider market has emerged with the expectation that advertising can substitute for free service. Companies like Google and MetroFi in the U.S. are trying to develop a unique revenue stream from local based advertising, and make nomadic broadband a universal service. But while they are giving service away, others are trying to create service revenues. A balance between the two vested interests needs to be created. Can advertising and content sales generate sufficient revenue to support free services? What additional sources of revenue can service providers exploit in building a sustainable business case?
If these guys keep making the news I might make a separate category for them. Hmm..
Yet, I still don’t think WiMAX will make it though! :P
March 21st, 2007 at 6:46 pm
It was actually the first idea that Martin had for Fon, to deploy WiMAX and compete against mobile operators, but then the whole thing turned to WiFi, and we know the rest of the story :)
March 30th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
FON has actually signed a deal for working with mobile broadband operator iBand in Scandinavia, using iBurst technology (IEEE 802.20) the original technology for mobile broadband which Wimax is trying to imitate.
April 9th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
[…] La Fonera x will use Wi-Max service instead of Cable/DSL modem. http://wirelessisfun.com/2007/03/20/fon-wifi-operator-planning-to-deploy-wimax/ http://elfonblog.fondoo.net/?p=19 http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/wimax-and-fon.html […]
May 18th, 2007 at 10:35 am
They need a national or european licence to operate on a wimax channel (5ghz?)
May 18th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Sure they do. But I anticipate they are waiting for a 2.4Ghz flavor of WiMAX.