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Whisher Adds a Symbian App
Updated: Whisher has sent this special offer to our readers. They are giving away WiFi Out credit to GigaOM readers, and you can get the details here. The deal allows you to get free WiFi at Starbucks, Hilton Hotels, International airports and other locations.
Whisher, which provides access to Wi-Fi hotspots around the world in exchange for access on users’ own home or business networks, has unveiled a client that allows access to its hotspots on Nokia Symbian (N81, N82 or E61) phones. The move is a smart extension of Whisher’s service offering; Nokia has been including Wi-Fi chipsets in many of its smartphones and has built a strong market share.
To integrate the client (and further lock users into using the Whisher service), the company has introduced a feature called Automatic Connection. When enabled, Automatic Connection scans all Wi-Fi networks within range and connects to the one with the strongest connection. (It’s unclear at this point whether the client would prefer a Whisher network over an open-access network if the two network strengths are equal.)
If you’d like to try the Whisher Wi-Fi sharing system and the associated Symbian client, there are two steps. First, visit Whisher’s web site and download the software appropriate for your home networking set-up (the company has both Windows and Mac clients). Once it’s installed, you’ll be “sharing” on the Whisher network of global Wi-Fi hotspots. Then point your mobile browser to http://nokia.whisher.com and install the Symbian application. After the app is installed, available Whisher hotspots will have a designated “W” icon attached, as pictured on the right.
To see whether the Whisher service has hotspots in the areas you frequent, be sure to view its global map.
The Wisher Wi-Fi network isn’t as far-reaching as the Fon network, but moves like this Nokia agreement — which capitalizes on the E Series and N Series wireless networking capabilities — are proof the company is working to stay competitive. What Wi-Fi roaming service do you use? Would you recommend it?
Fon Raises Another $9.5 Million In C Round
Fon, the Spanish startup that wants to bring free WiFi across the planet, just raised $9.5 million (six million Euros) in a C round led by Coral Capital Management. Also investing was British Telecom (which struck a distribution partnership with Fon last October), Google (a previous investor), investment bank Allen & Co., founder Martin Varsavsky (through his Jazzya holding company), and Joi Ito (through his investment vehicle, Digital Garage). That brings the total raised to more than $50 million (34 million Euros).
The way Fon works is that you set up a Fon WiFi router at your house or business and you can either give WiFi access away for free to other Foneros in exchange for free access when you are roaming about, or you can charge people for access and get 50 percent of any resulting fees. Fon says it has 170,000 active routers worldwide, with the leading countries being the UK, Japan, France, Germany, and the U.S. (in that order). In the UK alone, there are more than 70,000 BTFon members. By linking up with the telecom companies (Fon also has a partnership with Neuf in France), Fon gives them a way to offer their customers roaming broadband service. Fon is preparing to launch in Russia with a telco there called Sistema, whose largest shareholder is Coral. Says Varsavsky:
As far as our strategy, more and more we are collaborating with large telcos, which pundits wrongly thought were going to be our enemies. And that is because we have proven that a Fonero is a more loyal bandwidth customer as he gets to roam for free.
He plans to use the new cash to launch Fon in Russia this June, and to put out a new version of the Fonera router (also in June). The Fonera 2.0 router will come with a USB port so that members can connect it to a hard drive and upload photos and videos to the Web, download movies, or otherwise manage their media on online services. And in December, Fon will release an 802.11n WiFi router.
(Varsavsky also recently launched Twixtr, a side project that is like Twitter with photos).
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Sprint Writes Down Nextel, Posts $29.5 Billion Loss
If you thought eBay taking a hefty writedown for its mistake — I mean Skype was shocking — then Sprint’s Nextel deal writedown is going to leave you awed. Sprint Nextel reported a $29.5 billion loss, scratched its dividend and lost 683,000 customers. The company wrote down $29.7 billion of the $36 billion it paid for Nextel in 2005.
Taking that out of the equation, the company made some money, but things aren’t all that great for Sprint. Bloomberg reports that it is the fifth-largest loss among S&P 500 companies since 1990. In other words, there have been four other disasters bigger than this.
Anyway, there is more bad news in the offering, and new CEO Dan Hesse didn’t sugarcoat anything. With 1.2 million subscribers expected to switch away from Sprint, Hesse admitted that things are going to be tough.
“The fourth-quarter financial results reflect the challenges facing our wireless business… more difficult than what I had expected to encounter…will take time to produce improved operating performance. Our near-term subscriber and financial results will continue to be pressured.” [The Washington Post]
Hesse said Sprint will be the new brand, and they will launch the QChat in the second quarter.
That said, I wonder if Sprint can be saved? Take our poll and have your say.
Cellular Biz & Its $99 Problem
I’ve been watching the mobile industry commit hara-kari over the past few days. US Cellular is the latest to join this mad dash to the bottom. Their new $99 unlimited calling plans make me wonder if they have actually thought through this move and its long-term implications.
A friend of mine, a veteran of the long-distance wars who’s worked with the phone companies, both the wired and the wireless kind, described the big three mobile carriers — Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile — as dumb, dumber and dumbest.
These moves remind him of the crazy 1990s, when Sprint, MCI and AT&T fought over long-distance minutes by offering lower prices and thus slowly destroying their ability to make money to support their bloated infrastructure. It’s pretty much the same situation here — but the pain is going to be felt much sooner.
Here is why: I am one of the high-end customers of AT&T, locked into a 2-year contract for my iPhone. I’ve been paying $99 a month (plus about $40 for data and messaging) for 2,000 rollover minutes, free weekends and evenings.
It’s never been tough for me to go over the 2,000 minute-limit, since my mobile is my primary phone. Result: I end up paying between $25 to $150 in overages, depending on the amount time I spend on the phone. I am the perfect customer, the kind that makes up for the ones at the bottom of the pile who either don’t spend enough money or didn’t care to get big buckets of minutes.
But now I am going to get an unlimited plan. And that is the big question: Why would you as a company limit the amount of money spent by some of your best (and I mean high-spending) customers? I suspect most of the people who are going to sign up for these $99-a-month plans are going to be folks like me — existing customers who are looking to bring their wireless bills under control.
These are particularly attractive options for small biz, startups and web workers. Now your communication costs are pre-determined, which is a good way to budget. I am asking the GigaTEAM to switch to a $99 plan (on offer from whatever mobile operator they use) and also putting the PBX-land line option on hold…forever.
Twitxr - Like Twitter, With Pictures. Yeah, It’s Photoblogging.
FON (better known for building a WiFi community) launched Twitxr today through their FON Labs group. Basically, it’s Twitter but allows picture uploads when sending a message (which makes it particularly useful for camera phones). FON founder Martin Varsavsky announced the product on his blog.
So, yeah, basically it’s a photoblog. You can easily set it up to automatically send your messages to Twitter and Facebook too, though, which is useful. My Twitxr account is here. Here’s an example of a message that was copied over to Twitter. Another feature I like is the fact that you tell it where you are, so location information is included.
Varsavsky says it’s specially designed for the iPhone, and they’ve created software that makes uploading text and a photo from the iPhone very easy. As a third party application, though, it isn’t officially available for the iPhone. You have to “jailbreak” the phone before you can install their application. It looks like you can’t simply grab a photo that you’ve taken normally from the iPhone, either. You have to initiate the photo through the Twitxr application. The application automatically adds location information to your photos and updates.
Twitxr is the upteenth variation of Twitter to appear (see Jaiku (acquired by Google), Pownce, etc. One clone has even gone to the deadpool. This isn’t even the first Twitter-variation to include photos - see Zannel . This is something Dave Winer has been working on with his FlickrtoTwitter project as well - which sends links of your new Flickr photos to your Twitter account. And photoblogging is nothing new. So as pretty as Twitxr is, perhaps FON should stick to wifi.
Update: I’m actually going to re-jailbreak my iphone to test the software - the fact that uploading is so easy and it adds location information is worth noting. If it works really well, this could actually be a reason for me to stop posting directly to Twitter.
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phrozen.org fonera hacking page
Fon Wants Residents of San Francisco’s Castro District to Share Their Wi-Fi
“Give to receive” is the mantra of a new initiative by Spanish startup Fon to bring “free” Wi-Fi to the residents of San Francisco’s Castro District.
The plan is the same one tried by Fon elsewhere: the company gives people Wi-Fi routers to install in their homes with the understanding that they will use them to share some of their internet connection with other Fon users (so-called “Foneros”). The routers emit two types of signals: one for private usage and the other for secure access by fellow Foneros. Share some of your own internet connection and your neighbors will share back, effectively expanding the geographic area of the internet access you pay for.
The scheme has recruited over 635,000 users in Europe, Asia and America despite the bans many ISPs place on sharing internet connections. Fon is conducting this San Francisco effort with the support of the San Francisco Bay Guardian and will make money off the program after they stop giving the Wi-Fi routers away for free. If you do end up paying for a Fon router, you’ll have the chance to recoup your money (and maybe make a profit) through the proceeds of FON Access pass sales.
Fon joins Meraki in the attempt to bring widespread Wi-Fi to San Francisco after Google and Earthlink failed to do so themselves. Meraki’s strategy differs from Fon’s in many ways, particularly in its ad-based monetization strategy.
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