Buenos Dias, Foneros

As networking technology goes, wireless Internet, or wi-fi, is hard to beat: it enables you to surf the Web from your living-room couch or send e-mail from a coffee-shop armchair. The trouble is that wi-fi's range only extends a few dozen meters, so once you leave home—or when it's closing time at your neighborhood Starbucks—you're back in the Stone Age. Logging on through commercial wi-fi hotspots can also be cumbersome and expensive. But a Spanish company, FON, wants to change all this. Founded 15 months ago, FON touts itself as the world's largest wi-fi community, claiming 230,000 worldwide users—or Foneros—who can...