[CWN-Summit] FON

[David Young]

On Thu, Sep 07, 2006 at 03:42:55PM -0500, Dave Chakrabarti wrote:
> The point is also that this firmware has been available for quite a
> while...but almost no one had really heard of it. Fon was the first
> (that I know of) to create a centralized login portal and build the
> "system" for this kind of wifi sharing, and also the first to market the
> concept. You've heard of FON. You haven't heard of dd-wrt. Clearly,
> they're having some effect.

But I have heard of DD-WRT. :-) I think you will agree, it does not
provide a universal hotspot service---i.e., a service like T-Mobile's:

> Also, it's worthwhile to note that the firmware is only half the
> game...you still need a centralized server to manage everyone's login
> information, at the least. Otherwise, how does my router know to log you
> in? It follows that all of our portals must also link up to this central
> server, etc. That makes this a little less straightforward than a router
> with firmware that magically does all of this.

I am not so sure that you need a central server.  That is just the
conventional way of solving this kind of authorization problem, especially
if you want to collect a "toll" for use. :-)

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung at ojctech.com      Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933