Fon's new La Fonera hits FCC

Ok, Fon's new La Fonera isn't too different from last year's business-stealing La Fonera -- except this time it has a second Ethernet jack if you have a computer or device you want to plug right on in (and don't want / need to use an external switch), or, we suppose, if you want to jack your Fonera into your home network (if you do want / need to use an external switch). We kind of wish Fon changed the name up a little on this thing, maybe re-conjucated it so it would become La Fonero or something, but it would seem the ethernet jack is the only think you've got to look forward to in version 2.

P.S. -Don't mind that USB port -- it only appears in some of the pictures and not in the documentation, so we're assuming that's just a port used in testing / debug units.

[chetchez @ Jun 4th 2007 8:13PM]

It would be either La Fonera or El Fonero - Gotta match genders for pronouns and nouns :)

[Stephan @ Jun 4th 2007 8:19PM]

I suppose if it was La Fonero it would be a gender confused device...no you plug that into the female port!

[Declan.Hunter @ Jun 4th 2007 8:31PM]

If you look at the internal photo's it shows two different models one with the usb port the other without.

[elfonblog @ Jun 4th 2007 8:53PM]

The La Fonera Plus (AKA 1.5) has the (finally!) added LAN jack next to the WAN jack. The La Fonera 2.0 also has the USB port which works only with USB drive interfaces to provide storage for an onboard web-based (and sanitized) bittorrent client. Fon chose not to simply install Samba or even use their own online storage service. The name "La Fonera" was chosen by Brainslayer, developer of DD-WRT, who quit Fon last year over creative differences. A FonerO is one of us, a Linus, Bill or Alien who has joined Fon's database of members, so this device should not be called "A Fonero" or "La Fonero"; that would be estupid. Fon planned to sell a cheap flat panel antenna starting last month, and claims to have an 802.11n router by the end of this year. I blog about Fon at elfonblog.fondoo.net

[Casey Blackburn @ Jun 4th 2007 8:55PM]

If I remember correctly, the USB port will be used for sharing files. It's the FON Liberator actually. The USB port will be used for Filesharing on your network and across the Web.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/96311858@N00/423984113/

http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/general/fon-liberator.html

Check out those links.

[Casey Blackburn @ Jun 4th 2007 9:07PM]

Here is more info about the N router elfonblog mentioned:
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/fonera-n.html

The antenna he mentioned will be called the Fontenna:
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/world-premiere-of-the-fontenna.html

[elfonblog @ Jun 4th 2007 11:09PM]

Thank you for those links, Casey. The Flickr link you posted leads to an image of the -old design- for the Accton MR3203(?) router. The original La Fonera was a rebranded MR3201A router. We expected the La Fonera 1.5 to be a rebranded MR3202A, but it appears that Fon may no longer be rebranding Accton's equipment.

[Iaze @ Jun 5th 2007 4:13AM]

Hi! I was looking around and found the tecnical specs of the new "Fonero". You can find this here:
http://www.accton.com/products/product_range/21_weap/MR3203A.htm

[Fonero @ Jun 5th 2007 4:46PM]

Brainslayer did not come up with the name La Fonera. It was most likely Martin. Brainslayer doesn't speak Spanish and wouldn't have come up with something even remotely similar.

[AustinTX @ Jun 5th 2007 7:53PM]

LOL... I'm not letting this turn into a flame war, but when I say that the name "La Fonera" was proposed by Sebastien Gottschall, AKA "Brainslayer", this is not my opinion- it is *fact*. He and ex-company insiders have independantly confirmed this. Unsuprisingly, most of the ideas that make up Fon, as well as Fon President Martin Varsavsky's other pump-and-dump business ventures, were proposed by other people. Martin takes credit for these things for, uhm.. "brevity". I'm not sure whether Brainslayer speaks Spanish, but he probably manages fine, since he was once the programmer for Fon's earlier firmware version. In any case, it's no stretch of the imagination to name the "La Fonera"... the router of Fon, after "Foneros", the citizens of Fon.

[AustinTX @ Jun 5th 2007 8:08PM]

Laze: We'd been expecting the "Fon Liberator" aka "v2.0" to be based on the Accton MR3203A as you pointed out, however if you look at the new device, it's considerably larger and the connectors are in different places. You have to dig to find the MR20x devices on Accton's website now, which gives the impression that they have discontinued these devices and now Fon is rebranding another manufacturer's product.