Wifi maverick Fon expands into Russia

Open wifi champion, Fon, said late last week that it has signed a deal to expand into Russia through a partnership with fixed line operator Comstar.

The Fon network consists of approximately 230,000 wifi hot spots around the world, and is expanded every time a subscriber attaches a La Fonera wireless router to their broadband connection.

Under the terms of the agreement, Comstar and Fon will jointly establish a wifi internet access network in Russia and the CIS, initially created by the Comstar subscriber base in Moscow.

Comstar said it plans to establish 30,000 wifi access points in Moscow in 2008-2009 before expanding to other regions.

Fon’s ‘social routing’ business plan is modelled on Aliens, Linus’s and Bills. Linus users let other Fon subscribers access the internet over their wifi connection in exchange for free access on any other Fon hotspot around the world. Bills charge for access at their hotspots and share the revenues with Fon, while Aliens are basically roaming users that pay to access Fon hotspots.

Russian venture fun Coral/Sistema is one of the investors in the Fon network, alongside Google, British Telecom, Skype, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Excite Japan, among others.