Following a brief sit down with FON founder Martin Varsavsky (pictured right) earlier this month, Apple chief Steve Jobs reportedly came out of the meeting with a new appreciation for the company's "Wi-Fi for everyone" mantra, according to Apple Insider.
"He was very interested in FON; the meeting went on for an hour and a half," Varsavsky told Apple Insider, adding, "He's extremely curious. He asks a lot of questions. He's not the nicest guy -- I mean his questions are inquisitive [sic] to say the least. He's to the point."
Despite his abruptness, Varsavsky came away from the meeting with the impression that "[Jobs] liked the idea of FON."
"I think he loves the idea of a world where people share Wi-Fi. That I could tell," he continued.
Funded by big hitters like Google and Sequoia Capital, FON sells routers to its subscribers who then share their home Wi-Fi access. This is done by splitting a traditional Wi-Fi signal into two separate channels, one for broadband internet access and another to share with fellow subscribers.
Since its launch in 2005, the company has grown to become the world's largest Wi-Fi community, upsurping even T-Mobile of Germany in its first year in business. Most recently, FON inked a deal with U.K. broadband provider British Telecom to create another large Wi-Fi community. The deal combines BT's three million broadband customers with FON's community Wi-Fi infrastructure so that "every person in the UK who agrees to share a small portion of their home broadband connection will be able to share the connection of any other member."
