Certain Silence

According to Om, the Associated Press has confirmed that Time Warner and Fon have entered into a nebulous agreement. There are absolutely no specifics out yet, but the obvious deal is to bundle FON routers with a cable modem, and then grant Time Warner users access to the FON network, such as it is.

Spanish ISPs have been doing this for a while, and it makes a lot of sense if you believe that FON is a viable alternative to T-mobile hotspots, 3G data plans, or municipal/community wifi networks. Or open networks, for that matter. I’m skeptical of this, except in rather extraordinary circumstances (mixed commercial/residential districts), or FONeros who live above a Starbucks. As we see more dual 3G/wifi devices, maybe this’ll save people a few pennies a month on cell phone minutes. I like my FON router. I like the idea. I don’t think it’s a viable replacement for any of the things I listed above.

What’ll be fun to watch is how Time Warner modifies their TOS to allow sharing of wifi using a FON router, but not anything else. It will also be fun to watch law enforcement follow the chain, first to the ISP to get the user’s IP address, and then to FON to find out who was using the hotspot at what time.

technorati tags:fon, timewarner, wifi, starbucks, ommalik