Any Foneros out there?

Gloomendoom

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Well it's annoying but I just bought a new one. At just over £30 for continued availability of the Fon network it's a fair price to pay.

I see this one is N which may make it some use as a booster but it looks like the antenna may be fixed making the external one I bunged up to make the Fon AP more use unusable.

I was wondering about buying the business one. It seemed to have more connectivity for 10 yo-yo more.

Richard_T_

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Well it's annoying but I just bought a new one. At just over £30 for continued availability of the Fon network it's a fair price to pay.

I see this one is N which may make it some use as a booster but it looks like the antenna may be fixed making the external one I bunged up to make the Fon AP more use unusable.

If youve purchased a new fon router from the shop, how do you get round the log in problems? https://corp.fon.com/en/login# and did you have any fon credit/do you still have it ( as you cant be a bil in the UK)

kwikbreaks

It looks like you have to register a fresh account for the new router so hopefully that won't redirect to the BT "Buy Fon access" page.

I had something like £14 Openzone credit iirc on the original account. I never used any of it so the loss is not catastrophic but your reminder of it means I'll at least try to get it transferred to the new account.

If it turns out I can't access an account still or run a Fon AP then I'll be looking for a full refund with Fon paying the return postage. I used PayPal to buy it and they have an easier dispute procedure than sitting on the phone for half the day trying to get a CC transaction reversal which will be the next step if PayPal don't play ball.

I'm not really bothered about it as a private AP. I have wired the house and my Asus router's WiFi covers everywhere well enough not to need any boosters.

Richard_T_

After a few emails to Fon, I received this in my inbox after complaining about the lack of information, amongst other things

Please bear in mind that these (in some cases free) routers are 6 to 8 years old routers and we simply have to switch to newer systems.
Owners of these routers will receive an email soon, informing them about the changes.

I then responded that my Fon router was not yet five years old, and it most certainly wasnt free - it was purchased from Fon in 2010, and I also attached my original order/receipt confirmation.
I then got a reply stating that If i wished to purchase a new fonera they would send me a discount code, and that they did - new fonera on the way for €23.40

kwikbreaks

I got a belated reply myself now offering a possibility of a Promo code but no actual code. As I didn't bother to wait I've missed that.

All the delayed and differing replies indicate that they don't seem to have been prepared for this at all leading me to think that the suggestion above by Richard_T_ that this is the result of a botched firmware upgrade is closer to the truth than a network upgrade.

Lucky for the Fon staff they aren't operating a brewery otherwise any Christmas party would surely be a washout.

Gloomendoom

Richard_T_ wrote: »

I then got a reply stating that If i wished to purchase a new fonera they would send me a discount code, and that they did - new fonera on the way for €23.40

Any chance you could send me the code? They didn't offer me one.

tronator

Richard_T_ wrote: »

Any uses for a couple of old Fonera boxes ?

Flash it with DD-WRT...

Richard_T_

Ive only dealt with Fon a couple of times, and while they do get things done in the end, sometimes it requires a little effort to make them understand.
Their focus seems to be on mostly providing services to their network providers such as BT, SFR, Zon and so on who then deal with consumers, with those who have purchased equipment from FON, and those who have flashed custom Fon enabling firmware onto their routers being pretty much a legacy part of Fon.

While I have a new router on the way, I am still unable to log into my Fon account, which technicaly should also have my mew router registered to it.

Its going back a bit, and I may be worng, but im sure that when i forst purchased a La Fonera+ from Fon i had to create a Fon account ( as an alien ) which was then uprated to Linus on the purchase of the hardware as long as it was activated within a certain time, if not then it was a downgrade to alien.
There was also once upon a time a third catergory available in the UK, before BT signed up as a partner, and that was a Bill, if someone purchased wifi access from your router you got a 50%(?) commission on the sale.
In lieu of the inability to sign up as a Bil, Fon gave its users a £14 credit to use at ( certain ) commercial WiFi hotspots.
At the moment I still had some credit, and as I can no longer log in/still cant log in I'm not sure what has happened to it.

And for those who havent got a clue what bill, alien linus is:

Alien ; sign up to Fon and purchase wifi from the hotspot without owning any fon equipment/fon compatible equipment

Linus: Share and share alike - own either a fon router or flash fon custom firmware onto your router.

Bill: receive a comision form anyone purchasing wifi through your router ( ie an alien) and own either a fon router or flash fon custom firmware onto your router.

which brings up the question can those ith their own routers runing custom firmware still connect?
And the answer from Support pointed that the changes only affect the La Fonera+ model number FON2201C-UK which then points at a botched firmware update.
but if its just a firmware update/router incompatibility issue then why is the user log in area at https://corp.fon.com/en/login# not letting users in?

kwikbreaks

I'm not hopeful and suspect my new Fon router won't give me access to the BT Fon network once it has arrived and been set up so I'll have to get a refund - and chase up my missing credit to boot. Here's why...

From the login page - https://corp.fon.com/en/login there is a link "Join now!" On that page after entering United Kingdom and clicking the arrow you arrive at https://corp.fon.com/en/microsite/bt which simply says

Are you already a member of the service?

LOG IN WITH BT
Not a member yet?


BUY ACCESS
And get access to millions of Fon spots around the world for free.

No mention of running a Fon router or link to the shop at all.

Richard_T_

It looks like the p you have to register the router here https://register.fon.com/ if its anything like the fonera+ there should be an instruction sheet/quick start guide in the box.