FON & Ubiquisys enter strategic partnership to develop first 'Femto Fonera'
Femtocell-based wireless communities promise new opportunities for mobile operators
Madrid and London - FON and Ubiquisys, the largest WiFi community in the world together with the leading developer of 3G femtocells, today announced a strategic partnership to combine Ubiquisys femtocell and FON wireless community technologies. The combination offers mobile operators new opportunities to create communities based on the use of high-speed mobile data using a new generation of "femto fonera" devices that allow spare 3G capacity in the femtocell to be shared securely.
"I'm very excited to be working with FON, a company that shares our vision of improving people's lives through distributed, intelligent wireless technology," said Chris Gilbert, CEO Ubiquisys. "Femtocells introduce new elements to the community concept, making the experience for users even simpler, providing a lightweight architecture for presence-based community applications, and adding the reassurance of the existing trust relationship with mobile operators"
"Users want fast and affordable internet access with their mobile devices," said Martin Varsavsky, CEO FON. "Both FON and Ubiquisys are helping mobile operators to provide new wireless broadband options for their customers. This will help the proliferation of more wireless broadband access worldwide, creating a win-win situation for everyone."
FON community members, known as Foneros, share some of their home Internet connection and in return gain access to free Community FON Spots around the world. Fon's Community WiFi router, Fonera, allows Foneros to share WiFi in a secure environment.
Ubiquisys 3G femtocells provide premium 3G coverage areas in homes and businesses, connecting to the mobile operator's network via broadband. Mobile phone users get a wireline quality voice experience and dependable, maximum speed mobile broadband. Because Ubiquisys femtocells constantly adapt to changes in the mobile environment, they can also be used in public spaces without interfering with the operator's macro network.
Combining these technologies brings the potential to evolve a new generation of wireless communities where cellular mobile is fully involved. For example, users would benefit from automatic presence-triggered authentication, where the mobile operator controls the access rights.
Community members, or Femto Foneros, would experience femto-quality voice and full speed mobile data at thousands of community hotspots, and the potential for tariff discounts. Mobile operators would benefit from an increase in mobile data uptake and a huge boost in mobile broadband capacity, providing relief for today's congested 3G macro networks.
Femto Foneras could be in homes and offices, but equally in retail and public spaces, both urban and rural. FON and Ubiquisys are in discussion with several mobile operators to evaluate the Femto Fonera concept.
About FON: FON started the free WiFi revolution in 2006 with the first Fonera WiFi router and the goal of free, ubiquitous WiFi for everyone. Today, FON has more than half a million WiFi hotspots over 1.5 million registered members and a growing list of leading Telco partners such as British Telecom, SFR France, ZON Portugal, Comstar Russia and E-Plus Germany, who add FON functionality to their broadband, further expanding the global WiFi network. Google, eBay, British Telecom, Index Ventures, Coral Group and Sequoia Capital are investors in FON. For more information, visit www.fon.com
About Ubiquisys: Ubiquisys is the specialist femtocell company recognized by the World Economic Forum as a 2009 Technology Pioneer. Its ZoneGate femtocells are manufactured with Sony UK Tech and are available as standalone units or as part of a residential gateway device such as Netgear's DVG834GH and SerComm's FC210U. In 2007 Ubiquisys created the Femto Forum to promote standards and partnerships in this fast-emerging industry. ABI Research named Ubiquisys as the world's leading femtocell vendor in their 2008 and 2009 Femtocell Vendor Matrix. In September 2008 the company announced that Softbank would be the world's first operator to offer 3G femtocell services using the ZoneGate. Ubiquisys investors include Accel Partners, Advent Venture Partners, Atlas Venture, Google and T-Mobile Venture Fund. For more information, visit www.ubiquisys.com
Press Contacts: For FON Nina Varsavsky nina@fon.com
Jennifer Allerson jennifer.allerson@fon.com For Ubiquisys Ed Howson Tel: +44 (0)7740173051 ed.howson@temono.com
