FON in Hong Kong McDonald's, Starbucks, etc

Do you know about FON? You should – FON is the largest WiFi network in the world and it’s growing at a healthy rate. Get yourself one of FON’s La Fonera routers, set it up so that it begins sharing part of your Internet connection with other FON members (Foneros), and enjoy free WiFi access at hundreds of thousand of hotspots around the world.

Outblaze operates FON in Hong Kong, and we are extremely pleased to announce that FON is now enabled at a number of malls (such as IFC and Times Square) as well as McDonald’s and Starbucks outlets throughout Hong Kong, Kowloon, New territories, and even the Outlying Islands! Roughly 400 retail shops, restaurants, bars, malls and other public spaces and businesses are now serving Foneros, and that’s just the public hotspots – there are thousands of private hotspots all over the city.

As announced on the FON HK blog, check out www.freewifi.com.hk to get an idea of the public coverage now available. To see all hotspots in Hong Kong, use FON’s Google Maps service.

This is a better time than ever to become a Fonero, and it’s really simple. Just sign up to FON, order your La Fonera router, and set it up on your broadband connection. I use mine to enable all my WiFi at home, but some people like to plug in La Fonera simply as a secondary router. Either way it’s simple and fast, and all it costs you is the price of the router (HKD 249 for the newest version, HKD 119 for the original La Fonera). Considering that for that price you get a fully functional WiFi router and free WiFi at any FON hotspot anywhere in the world, it’s an unbeatable deal. I recommend the newer La Fonera + model because it has an additional Ethernet port.

Some people have concerns with security and FON. In fact, FON is far more secure than your average WiFi router. In my building I can surf on half a dozen unsecured WiFi connections because their owners aren’t aware that their WiFi signals are wide open to the neighbours and passers-by. My La Fonera, on the other hand, is secure for two reasons:

1. It has dual SSID, providing one channel for your private use that only to you can access, and one public channel for WiFi sharing with other Foneros (and only other Foneros)
2. La Fonera provides secured WiFi out of the box, unlike many other routers which require you to configure and tinker with them.

Some people are concerned that they might be held liable for any improper activities committed on their Internet connection by other Foneros. Fortunately FON keeps a record of which Foneros accessed and used your public channel, so in the event of improper use you can easily identify the real culprit. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to have FON.