Can Someone Find The FON

Since December I've now been in Madrid, Barcelona, London and Paris and as much as I try to find a FON, none of them seem to be anywhere. I don't mean casually traveling through, but spending enough time to feel like a resident or at least a semi-resident.

I mean, I wander the streets, dine in cool and hip bistros, tapas, wine bars or find the trendy places that one can enjoy oneself. I don't just visit the tourist spots. So with my Nokia N and E series phones, plus my Blacberry, MacBooks and now Asus eeePC, I regularly log on to the net. But over the last year, finding the FON has been harder than finding an Earthlink Muni WiFi signal....

I think Jonathan Greene was right.

Comments

[Andy Abramon]

I actually saw one in Paris when having dinner at Chez Jenny. It was one of the Neuf-FON locations but unfortunately I couldn't log on, and I was prepared to as an alien as my FON router is not on for some reason at home. Likely due to construction and the workmen unplugging things...

I guess everyone has a reason :-(

[Evert Bopp]

FON is a moneypit without any clear success (yet) and still burning loads of cash 2 years after their first big investment: http://tinyurl.com/5qask7

[Alexander Straub]

I believe most of the FON hotspots are in residential areas. Places you and I are never present. However I personally live beside a HOTEL in London. IN the past 18 months I have not seen many (if not any) person login into my FON hotspots. So while i believe my cousin FON hotspot could be useful to me as a truphone addict, the random person from the STREET FON is not very useful. IN the UK so i heard you can now log into BT Openzone, which is a huge. All over London... something to explore

[Conor O'Neill]

I have three FON spots setup around Ireland and none of them have ever been used except by me. On the other side, like you, I've never found a FON signal from anyone else.

Has anyone done the numbers on density required for there to be even a slim chance of seeing a FON point in a city?