Crowdsource Your Way to Free Wi-Fi Everywhere By getting people to share a part of their bandwidth, upstart Fon wants to build a no-cost web-access world.

The number of public Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide is projected to reach 5.8 million by next year, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can find free internet access whenever and wherever you need it.

Just ask Martín Varsavsky.

"I was in Paris looking for Wi-Fi, and there were so many encrypted signals," says the Madrid-based entrepreneur. "This was in the afternoon, and I was sure that a lot of people in the neighborhood were not at home. I thought, Why wouldn't these people want to share their signal with me? They're not even using it."