"I'm from New Zealand, age 20, starting a PhD in mathematics in October in the UK. I lived in a tiny apartment in Japan for four months, and my only contact with the outside world was the internet. Before I arrived I thought I'd have to use an internet cafe, which would probably be expensive and not in English and far from where I was staying, but to my delight I found I had a wireless connection in my room through FON. I used a one day pass every day, and I could also use my own laptop, and not have to worry about learning to use a foreign computer. Looking back on it now I don't know how I could have survived without FON."

"I work as a Unix systems administrator in the IT department of a military organisation in Swindon, SW England. I first came across FON when I did a search on the Internet for free wireless networks. I had installed a wireless network at home but I wanted to be able to connect to the Internet using my Apple iBook when travelling. I could only find expensive and very expensive wireless networks whilst travelling.

I joined FON to perpetuate the number of free wireless access points in the world for the benefit of others and of course myself. The more the better of course.

The advantages of being a Fonero are to be able to connect to the many FON Spots! I think this is really great and love to do it. I love being part of a social-change network. The Community needs to be expanded, that is the very best way it could be improved. Once it becomes regularly useable then it will gain a momentum that will be unstoppable. I already have a powerful aerial which increases my signal area three times in order to spread the word (and network)."

"I'm a 26-year-old researcher with a master's degree in computing, currently living in London. I first heard about FON on Slashdot, or one of the other tech news sites. I think Internet access should be ubiquitous, so the idea of building a community-based roaming network sounded like something I'd like to support.

Running a FON Spot provides me an easy way to offer temporary Internet connection to friends who come to visit. If they are FON members, they can log on with their own details. If not, they can use my 'friends and family' login details. I have some friends and family members who run their own FON access points, and it is of course avnvenient to be able to roam with FON in their homes.

I have been happy to see that even in a residential area, my FON Spot actually has active users. I have people accessing the Internet through my access point daily. According to the logs, five people have bought FON passes through my router in the past three weeks."

"I am a 31 Scuba Diving Instructor and I live just outside London. A friend of mine had been reading a popular UK technology web site and recommended I look at an article on a new wireless community. The rest was history! I joined FON not long after the Community had been set up.

At the time I was a member of a UK Wi-Fi community. Although the idea of sharing Wi-Fi signal was revolutionary at the time, my former UK Wi-Fi community did not have any form of centralised authentication or standardised equipment so connecting to a point that was not your own was a very complicated procedure and sharing your own signal was very risky as each point had to be left open. Anyone could use your hotspot for any reasvvon, legal or not! With these issues in mind FON seemed to be a much better organised, easier to use and safer community so I joined up.

The advantage of FON in a word, freedom. With my job I am lucky enough to visit some fantastic parts of the world to train my students, especially the Mediterranean countries. FON allows me to keep up to date with the latest training and safety information meaning that my students can get the most out of the underwater world as well as being able to share their experiences with their loved ones back home faster."