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As wifi networks become more commonplace a number of companies are starting to promote a community approach to access and use. In short, the community becomes the network operator by creating a wifi blanket enabling internet and voice communications significantly cheaper than provided by telecoms operators.

There are various business models that promote the growth of this concept as demonstrated by companies such as FON, Google and recent start up Whisher. In all examples the key is providing an experience where users can easily establish a wifi connection without remembering 1000s of logon credentials, one for each wifi access point.

FON is arguably the largest WiFi community in the world, with investment from both Google and Skype. Their members share their wireless Internet access at home and, in return, enjoy free WiFi wherever they find another FON access point. To join the FON community you purchase (for a once off fee) and connect a subsidised wifi router to your existing broadband connection (logon issues solved by all users having FON provided hardware). So far over 250,000 members have joined the community. There have even been recent reports of a possible deal between FON and BT to incorporate BT’s fusion product, a mobile phone that can connect to wifi networks to make discount phone calls.

Google is currently trialing a wifi network in California where access point information means Google can derive additional revenue from location specific advertising. Google is installing the wifi access points on lamp posts at their own cost. It is yet to be announced how the network is to be expanded.

Whisher, a new start up, encourages users to share their wifi access by joining the Whisher network. Whisher effectively provides a service collating wifi access point login credentials to aid roaming between member access points (FON achieves this by sending you a pre-configured wifi access point).