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Wireless - Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Stoke In The US, Fon In The EU

Everyone state-side is covering the startup called Stoke, which is backed by nearly $20M from both Kleiner and Sequoia. Stoke would enable users to switch from wireless phone coverage to broadband (a nascent sector known as mobile convergence). As Matt Marshall at the Merc points out, Stoke faces such competitors as: U.K.-based Apertio and Norwood Systems, Ireland's Cicero, Israel's Commil, Canada's NewStep, and U.S. start-ups Azaire, Kineto, Persona Software, Quorum Systems and Tatara Systems.

Thanks to our Swiss source Valerie Thompson, we learn about Fon, a Spanish competitor to Stoke that is a pretender to the Skype throne. Fon's founder is the Argentine Martin Versavsky who founded Jazztel in 1998, today Spain´s second largest publicly traded telecom operator and Ya.com, today Spain´s second largest internet site after Terra. In contrast to other companies in this space, Fon is indeed looking to create a movement, like Skype. It asks owners of wireless routers to download Fon software to create community wireless networks. Like Skype, which made phone companies public enemy number one, Fon looks to put wireless companies in the cross-hairs. Valarie reports that the hyperbole-capable Versavsky claimed on his blog that "Vodafone's stock will tank when word gets out about this..." - a statement that he later retracted.

A Call To Fon

Read - Start-up Stoke aims to forge one big network for mobile phones (SJ Mercury)
Read - Is the World Ready for a Unified Wi-Fi Network? Argentine entrepreneur sets sights on 'FON' to make it work (OhMyNews)