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Introduction: the rise of the sharing economy

Nowadays, the sharing economy has become a worldwide phenomenon. It has come in many different forms, in many different industries. One can share, exchange, trade, swap; one can do this with cars, housing, clothing, etc. (Habibi, Davidson & Laroche 2016). Many startups are creative in continually thinking of new ways to participate in the sharing economy. Well-established companies in the sharing economy, such as Airbnb, Uber and Zipcar, can be used as an example by newer startups; either by following them in what has gone well, or by being cautious in what went wrong for them in the past.

Industries that can be innovated in, by utilizing the sharing economy, seem to be endless. As such, a startup called Fon, is a pioneer in Wi-Fi sharing, managing 21 million hotspots globally (Fon Wireless, Ltd., 2018). You might have already seen this name in the past, either consciously or unconsciously, in the list of the Wi-Fi signals on your phone, laptop, tablet, or any other device. Actually, as I am writing this post, there is currently a Fon signal on my laptop.

In the Netherlands, Fon has partnered up with KPN (Fon Wireless, Ltd., 2018). But partnerships are just a part of Fon’s business model. Are you interested in getting to know more about what Fon exactly is? Then continue reading.

Fon: a wireless network

So, what exactly is Fon, and what does it do? Fon is a wireless network, aiming to create a global network of wireless access to Wi-Fi, based on Wi-Fi routers, that members should own and share with one another. There are two separate ‘signals’ coming from Fon’s Wi-Fi router, the Fonera, where one is meant to be used by the owner of the router, and the other is meant to be used by the members of the Fon community, who are in the neighborhood looking for a Wi-Fi signal. Due to these separate signals, privacy issues do not pose a concern. (McGarry, 2013)

One can buy the Wi-Fi router from Fon’s own branded routers, the Fonera, offering free lifetime membership, but most of the hotspots provided by Fon are coming from the partnerships it has with broadband providers. As mentioned earlier, for example in the Netherlands, Fon has partnered up with KPN (Fon Wireless, Ltd., 2018).

The Fon for members app

To enhance convenience for its customers, Fon has also created an app for its members, offering several utilities. This app is not available in all countries, so to partly overcome this issue, Fon has set up other versions of the app for which they collaborate with other brands. On the app, members can, for example, check their own profile, and open a map that shows all available hotspots in the area. (Fon Wireless, Ltd., 2018)

What about its revenue model?

Interestingly, Fon is a not for profit company (Schriber, 2018). When purchasing a router, you become a member and you pay the price of the router, after which you are offered free lifetime membership. The Wi-Fi sharing of Fon is enabled by the software it has developed.

Fon is continuously aiming to expand, however this has unfortunately not been easy in every part of the world (Ricknäs, 2015). Its strategy to expand is often via partnering up with local broadband providers. In January 2014, Fon raised $14 million in funding, which it wanted to use for expansion in the United States. However, expansion in the United States did not seem easy for them (Ricknäs, 2015).

One drawback of the service is its limited Wi-Fi signal, making the service better suitable to dense, urbanized areas (Jackson, 2016). As such, have a look at the map below, where it can be seen that the service is much more used in denser countries, such as the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Nevertheless, if Fon mostly focuses on denser, more urbanized areas, it can definitely remain a strong player in the market. In current times where data usage is continuously increasing and access to the Internet is almost becoming a hygiene factor in developed countries, Fon can fill a gap in the market, as constant access to Wi-Fi is not yet globally covered.

A factor that Fon has to take into account that could work against them, is the increasing global availability and the reducing costs of data on your phone. For example, roaming within Europe has recently become free of charge (Europa, 2018). This causes less people searching for a Wi-Fi signal, because they might just as well use the data on their phone.

References

Europa. (2018). Roaming in the EU. [online] Available at: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/internet-telecoms/mobile-roaming-costs/index_en.htm [Accessed 10 Mar. 2018]

Fon Wireless, Ltd. (2018). Fon is the global WiFi network. [online] Available at: https://fon.com [Accessed 10 Mar. 2018]

Habibi, M.R., Davidson, A. and Laroche, M., 2017. What managers should know about the sharing economy. Business Horizons, 60(1), 113-121.

Jackshon, M. (2016). 1 in 3 Home Broadband Routers to Double as Public WiFi Hotspots by 2017. [online] Available at: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/01/1-in-3-home-broadband-routers-to-double-as-public-wifi-hotspots-by-2017.html [Accessed 11 Mar. 2018]

McGarry, C. (2013). Sharing with strangers: Fon wants to be the Zipcar of Wi-Fi. [online] Available at: https://www.techhive.com/article/2056719/sharing-with-strangers-fon-wants-to-be-the-zipcar-of-wi-fi.html [Accessed 10 Mar. 2018]

Ricknäs, M. (2015). Fon keeps adding WiFi Hotspots but struggles to crack the US. [online] Available at: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2942552/fon-keeps-adding-wifi-hotspots-but-struggles-to-crack-the-us.html [Accessed 11 Mar. 2018]

Schriber, B. (2018). Understanding Fon Wi-Fi Hotspots. [online] Available at: http://internet-access-guide.com/understanding-fon-wi-fi-hotspots/ [Accessed 11 Mar. 2018]

Personalization

With the rise of digitalization has come the rise of digital personalization. Personalization has been existent for a couple of years now, in different kinds of industries, such as retail, cars and even perfumes (Randall, Terwiesch & Ulrich 2005). This means companies and researchers also already had quite some time to learn about both the benefits and the drawbacks of personalization. However, the drawbacks are harder to overcome nowadays, since the use of personalization has already been implemented on such a big, global, scale. Think, for instance, about privacy concerns that could have at least partly been prevented if legislation was set in place in time. However, we can all understand that it is hard to act upon potential drawbacks in advance if there is no prior experience whatsoever.

Nevertheless, it is always a good idea to be cautious and critical about upcoming trends such as personalization, before blindly implementing them without thinking about any potential consequences, either negative or positive. This means, foreseeing any potential drawbacks, as well as keeping in mind what you would like to reach as a goal by pursuing a trend such as personalization.

Personalized e-learning

Ashman et al. (2014) have presented a detailed discussion regarding personalization, but not in the field of, e.g., e-commerce, where it is already widely implemented, but rather in the field of e-learning. Personalization in e-learning is still in its beginning phase and therefore not yet widely implemented. Thus, the authors act in advance on warning e-learning providers and educational institutions on the potential drawbacks of the personalization of e-learning, including recommendations on how to overcome them, before it is too late. Especially since educational institutions are increasingly using such models as a way to gain as much as new students as possible, to increase their income, risking to lose their initial, most important goal out of sight: to enhance the quality of education. (Ashman et al. 2014)

But why is personalization of e-learning initially needed, then? The authors acknowledge where institutions’ interest in personalization of e-learning is coming from. E-learning is an upcoming trend on its own already to overcome the lack of time and resources to facilitate an increasing number of students globally. However, students might feel disenfranchised and their individual learning needs might become neglected by the use of e-learning. To overcome this issue, educational institutions are starting to implement the personalization of e-learning. However, then again, personalization comes with its setbacks.

Setbacks

The three main setbacks discussed by Ashman et al. (2014) are privacy concerns, serendipity issues and deskilling problems. The authors discuss these three setbacks in great detail. Privacy concerns is a recurring issue surrounding the topic of data gathering in general, which is also needed for personalization. Serendipity issues are about the reduced ability to learn and understand different beliefs, cultures and lifestyles, or to learn ‘out of your comfort zone’, as personalization leads to the targeted student to only be presented information that fits within his/her field of interest. Lastly, students can be deskilled in the sense that they do not learn how to critically assess and evaluate the information that they are given, as with personalization they are presented the results that most closely fit their needs, so they stop looking further very quickly. The authors emphasize, in order to overcome these issues, it is important to inform students about what and how data is gathered about them, and to give them the opportunity to control what information is presented to them. Additionally, they advise a clear and thorough understanding by e-learning providers and educational institutions of why personalization in e-learning is needed and what can be achieved by it, for which thorough experimentation is required.

In their paper, several universities, such as Harvard, St. Gallen and Ontario, are used as an example, from which data is analyzed very extensively by Google Analytics. Google Analytics tracks staff and students on the websites of the universities. This enhances the concern of privacy, as the user ID’s were visible.

Opportunities

Despite these discussed setbacks, the authors do see great value in personalized e-learning as “the system is genuinely able to interact with users, recognize when they need assistance and guide them to the appropriate information or educational activity” (Ashman et al., 2014). Unfortunately, the authors of this paper focus solely on education in well-established economies, which is only a small part of the world. It would be interesting to see the possibilities of personalized e-learning being enforced globally, and thus in poorer areas, too. Interestingly, founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife, are planning to donate 99% of their Facebook shares to invest in, amongst other things, personalized learning. He mentioned:

“Students around the world will be able to use personalized learning tools over the internet, even if they don’t live near good schools. Of course it will take more than technology to give everyone a fair start in life, but personalized learning can be one scalable way to give all children a better education and more equal opportunity.” (Strauss, 2015)

Let’s see what the future holds for us and the upcoming generations regarding a transformation in education, not only in well-established, advanced countries, but also in countries limited in access to good education. Although the negative consequences should not be forgotten and be acted upon well in advance…

References

Ashman, H., Brailsford, T., Cristea, A. I., Sheng, Q. Z., Stewart, C., Toms, E. G., & Wade, V. (2014). The ethical and social implications of personalization technologies for e-learning. Information & Management, 51, pp. 819–832.

Randall, T., Terwiesch, C., & Ulrich, K.T. (2005). Principles for user design of customized products. California Management Review, 47(4), 68. Links to an external site.

Straus, V. (2015). A primer for Mark Zuckerberg on personalized learning — by Harvard’s Howard Gardner. The Washington Post.