Peek teams up with FON to liberate Europe... from roaming charges
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted December 10th 2009 1:19PM
posted December 10th 2009 1:19PM
Although the bright and cheerful Peek (and its somewhat ill-advised Twitter-centric brother) has long been a source of fascination for us, we realize that for most Americans a dedicated email device doesn't make too much sense. Now, in the same way that Hendrix had to go to London to find critical acceptance, it looks like FON CEO Martin Varsavsky thinks the device might be a winner overseas -- nothing less than a heroic "pan-European email machine that avoids [data] roaming charges." According to the man's blog, the PeekFon will cost €99 (roughly $145), including six months unlimited service, courtesy of a new MVNO called Spotnik. After that, you'll need to pay as you go to the tune of €12.90 (roughly $19) a month. Sick of those insane roaming charges? Curious? European? Varsavsky shares his feelings on the subject after the break.
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AHAHAHH!!
I dare them to try to release this thing in Canada!
no F-in way.
All the providers here act like Data is a depleting non-renewable resource!
How the fack does a Text message get more expensive? are we using gold plated ASCII CHARS? LOL, that "LOL" would cost $0.05 to send on a Canadian network.
@NAME
That lol would cost $0.20 in Switzerland...
@NAME I fully agree with this statement. I noticed when I put my pay-as-you-go SIM card in a blackberry and tried using the internet, I saw this silly message saying I would have to pay $3 for 20 MB of data. TWENTY MEGABYTES! On top of that, those twenty megabytes would expire in 24 hours.
i think you guys base stories on photoshops sometimes ... that's a good one.
Glorious Photoshop.
@verygoodyear +10^10
@verygoodyear
peek done won da war...
"we realize that for most Americans a dedicated email device doesn't make too much sense."
Yeah can you just imagine someone buying a device like a Blackberry just for e-Mail? Gosh, it could never happen.
@anogee That's what happened about a decade ago. Blackberry was once used for strictly email.
I have seen sales with a Moto startac, a pager & a blackberry strapped to his 42inch waist.
Can anyone tell me what's up with this recent crop of things ending in "fon"? Does it make sense in some language other than English?
@Ryan Trevisol Okay, so it's really only two things: TwitterFon and now PeekFon.
It reminds me of some of the awesomely bad European English slogans written by and for people who don't speak english. Like the backpack company whose cardboard standup announced "FREE PISS" in Italy and the guy wearing the "Relax and Fun" T-Shirt in Switzerland.
@Ryan Trevisol
In Danish a telephone is called a "telefon" a FON.. a FON..
Personaly i will buy it because i don't have an "iphone" or something like this and emails are my main source of communication ! I don't need something else i have an ipod touch but email with 3g will be great for me.
Michael (France)
epic potteryshopping there boys (or gals)
I really want one of these - but only for a one-off lifetime payment...no monthly contracts thanks, i'm already getting screwed enough over the phone contract!
PORK CHOP SANDWICHES!
This pixel hacking job is both strange and eerie.
Amazing shoop.
€12,90 for flat... E-Mail? Like... no?
Well the EU recently agreed to curb roaming shenanigans in the EU, so that's a bit of a disadvantage, but even with the curbing to a max they can ask it's still not that rosy, so yeah they got a handle anyway.
13€ a month? No thanks. I'll just take the extra Internet flat option to my O2 contract for 9€ and have (almost) the same fun with my W995.
Dear Mr. Varsavsky, please reconsider your plans.
i don't get it, isn't the only purpose of Peek to offer a portable email capability to those americans who can't afford expensive smartphone contracts?
in europe smartphone contracts cost the same as any other contracts so i can't see the Peek being successful here.
I might be mistaken, but doesn't using FON require finding a FON WiFi hotspot? With a smartphone you could just find some regular WiFi hotspot and send free emails from there.
So a peek with wifi that automatically connects to fon spots?
wow. that's pretty cool. but not a game changer...
i thought one solution might be to rent a local smartphone with unlimited data, free calls, and GPS. imagine not having to plan or buy travel guides for your trip to a city, and just getting an iphone with premium location aware travel apps with free internet service. it's pretty affordable and i think any modern tourist would like it.
there's one company that does it for london
www.aziphone.com
i would like to see more and better solutions. maybe for people with smartphone, they'd still like it because they might have a locked phone or not want to pay £80 for travel apps they'll use once...
hmm
can't find anything about spotnik
except here
http://about.telus.com/ventures/en/portfolio.html
but dont' think it's the right one