Martin Varsavsky, founder of Fon

Jessica Mintz of the Associated Press is reporting today that Time Warner Cable has agreed to a partnership with the insurgent community wifi business Fon. Founded by serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky, Fon offers wireless routers that anyone can use to set up a public wifi hotspot. When you get a Fon router, you set it up to allow your neighbors to piggyback on your wireless connection, either for free or a small fee - typically a couple dollars a day.

While Fon has been successful partnering with ISPs in Europe, they hadn't had any success penetrating the US market. (This didn't stop tens of thousands of Fon enthusiasts, or foneros, setting up their own Fon hotspots on the Q-T, though.) Now, Time-Warner cable customers will be allowed to use the technology and become purveyors of community wifi without having to violate their terms of service. The question still remains whether other ISPs will follow suit. Starbucks and T-Mobile, for example, have been somewhat dismissive of Fon, which caused the Spanish company to respond by giving away nearly 7,000 free Fon routers to people who live adjacent to Starbucks, allowing them to provide a competing service.

Last year I got a chance to meet Martin during a presentation he gave at Harvard. Here's a video of him discussing the idea behind Fon. -andy