FON

You pay for internet access at home, so why must you pay for it again at the coffee shop, the airport and the hotel? That frustration spawned Spanish Wi-Fi startup Fon. It's a simple idea: Give and you shall receive. "Foneros" first agree to share their home wireless connections with other Fon customers using a special router, which splits the signal into public and private streams. In exchange, they get the privilege of using any of the network's wireless signals anywhere in the world for free. Fon has inked important deals with TimeWarner Cable in the United States, BT in Britain and Neuf in France, and its network has expanded to an impressive 600,000 registered users worldwide. Free global internet for the price you already pay at home?

FON is the world’s largest WiFi community and the best way to get connected to the internet for free!
When you buy any Fonera (FON’s line of revolutionary WiFi routers) and connect it to your existing broadband connection, you create a FON Spot (a secure WiFi access point) that allows you to share your WiFi connection with other FON members.

The Fonera 2.0 series allows you to do even more with your WiFi. You can upload videos to YouTube, and photos to Facebook, Picasa or Flickr and download torrents or files, directly to or from an external hard disk...even when your computer is off!

* Founder: Martin Varsavsky
* Funding: Approx. $35 million from Skype, Google, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Excite, Digital Garage and BT
* Employees: Approximately 90 worldwide

Check out their website: http://www.fon.com/en/
For a quick tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlhaNaFc89U&feature=player_embedded#at=41