How does a consumer level WiFi router for $5 sound? If you’re willing to share your Internet connection for 12 months then you got yourself a deal. A company called FON, which has supposedly raised $21.7 million in capital from the likes of Skype and Google founders, plans to subsidize the $60 Cisco router, or Buffalo routers, in hopes of expanding the world’s WiFi reach and availability. Other wise known as social routers, the goal of the Mardrid company is to not only provide wireless Internet connections to computer users, but to handheld devices, video gamers, and mobile phones. FON is hoping to expand its reach to 50,000 working hotspots by September, 150k by year-end, and 1 million by the end of 2007. The company’s program has grown quickly expanding from 3000 sign ups in February to a purported 54,000. The only catch is that the company has to get beyond the ISPs and cable providers who sometimes limit subscribers from sharing their Internet connections. Perhaps we’ll soon see ads in the vein of software piracy notification, only it will be WiFi sharing, otherwise known as “foneros”.

Startup Offering Routers for Just 5 Bucks [PcMag]