In order to promote “Onet FON” WiFi Access Points, Onet will build hotspots in Poland and promote Onet FON routers in its upcoming DSL offering, so that Onet subscribers automatically become members of the FON community and are able to surf for free on all FON Community Access Points in the World.
Onet.pl, owned by Grupa Onet.pl S.A. (GRO/WSE), is Poland’s leading Internet portal with over 200 different services and over 4 million active e-mail accounts. On a monthly basis, it records over 2 billion page views. Onet.pl develops and launches new types of advertising targeted to the local market, as well as online games, premium content and online sales for Internet domains, premium SMS services for mobile phones and airplane tickets. The company reported dynamic growth in the first six months of 2006 of 46 % increase in its total sales from corresponding period in 2005.
Onet.pl is part of Poland’s leading media group, TVN Group (TVN S.A., TVN/WSE), which apart from Onet, is active in television broadcasting and production.
Lukasz Wejchert, CEO, Onet, said:
Customers have the right to communicate at fair prices whatever the means. Disruptive technologies allow us to fulfill their needs. With OnetSkype we revolutionalized the way Polish people communicate with each other across the Globe.
With Onet FON, I am convinced that we will revolutionalize the way people use the Internet. Our Wifi network will provide ultimate mobility to our user base – and that is Global.
We are partnering with FON in order to expand this service further through the the “Onet FON” WiFi hotspots, bringing the free, Internet based calling to those homes, schools, small businesses and hotels, who have broadband access to wider offerings of the Internet at faster transmission speeds. FON is a great company, and we are pleased to have them as our partner.”
Martin Varsavsky, CEO, FON said: “The Polish internet community is fast becoming one of the largest in Europe. A lot of it thanks to the creativity of the people at ONET who we are so happy to partner with.
At FON we have a simple proposition, you pay for your bandwidth at home, install a FON enabled router and you travel the world connecting to the internet for free. Nowadays more and more devices are coming with WiFi including PSPs, Nintendo DS, laptops, digital cameras, music devices, portable TVs, and the new Skype phones that make Skype go mobile. With FON Polish foneros will be able to roam their country and the world with their gadgets without having to pay the high charges that other technologies such as 3G demand.”
Many leading manufacturers, such are Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola have already launched WiFi phones to the market, to be followed by Netgear, Belkin, Edge-Core, SMC and FON’s parent, SKYPE. These phones look and feel like mobile phones, but they actually operate over a WiFi (internet
protocol) network using radio spectrum.
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