FON: Free Wi-Fi for Everyone?

A fellow PhilMugger posted this at my online home and I must say that I'm intrigued by the idea.

Basically FON is a Global Community of people who share WiFi. Share your WiFi broadband access at home/work and enjoy WiFi all over the world! (from their website).

Now, in order to use FON, a wi-fi router should have the FON software installed in it and people who wants free FON access should have a FON client on their computer (for authentication purposes). This takes care of the risk of people simply leeching bandwidth and doing crazy things on a network.

The system basically goes like this: If you have wi-fi at home, you register at FON and install the FON application on your router which allows you to share your wi-fi bandwidth to other FON users. Since you share your bandwidth, you are entitled to freely use other FON-enabled wi-fi hotspots, allowing you to have roaming internet access basically for free.

FON is currently in Beta but once it is fully operational, there will be a facility to bill "Alien" users for using any FON hotspot.

Lofty ideals! But will it be legal considering that most of the broadband contracts have clauses that prohibits these types of sharing.