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Call me inherently optimistic (ormaybe just naive) but I have a thing againstlocks. I don’t lock my house, my car or even my luggagewhen I travel. And needlessto say, I don’t lock my internet connection. I’m one of those people who believe that internet access is a common good and that sharing my wifi connection is just a neighborly thing to do.

And I’m not alone. The city of Magala in Andalucia (Spain)is poised to become theworld’s first wifi city, thanks to FON Technology SL, a wifi start-up company that allows users to share their broadband access with their neighbors. ?

The idea is a simple one: FON’s La Fonera “social routers” let broadband users in homes and small businesses split their internet connection, creating a secure network as well as a public one. FON users, called “Foneras”can choose how much of their broadband capacity is dedicated to their own use and how much is available to the public. Anyone who uses the router to share access at home can use other La Fonera routers when they are away from home. Other people, called “aliens,” can pay $3 per day for access. (for a more detailed description of FON’s business model, check out Bruno Giussani’s Business Week article).

FON isn’t as much a technology as it is a social movement: the company describes itself as a community of people making WiFi universal and free.That community is heavily backed by investors such as Google and Skype, who in March poured an additional $13 million in funding into the company which will help FON realize its goal of one million hotspots by 2010.