CNET News' Marguerite Reardon reports on FON's plans to unwire San Francisco and other cities worldwide. As part of that effort, the company gave away its Wi-Fi routers for free in San Francisco's Union Square on Friday. The cheap-as-dirt La Fonera routers are available on the company's Web site for $5, but are also being given away for free at events nationwide.

"San Francisco or any other city doesn't have to wait for new Wi-Fi networks to be built," says Joanna Rees, chairman of U.S. operations for FON. "There are 400 million Wi-Fi connections around the world. If we could get all of them to become part of the FON community and share their Wi-Fi, we would have ubiquitous coverage around the world today. And we wouldn't need to build municipal Wi-Fi networks."

The concept behind FON is simple -- hook up one of their La Fonera routers and your home broadband connection becomes a secure FON access point. "Once users have registered, they become part of the FON community, which allows them free access to any FON hotspot in the world," Reardon writes. "Non-FON members can also access the network, but they must pay $1 or $2 for 24 hours of access. This small fee is actually how FON generates revenue."

There is one key issue -- sharing your broadband connection violates most providers' terms of service. "People need to know that sharing their broadband service amounts to theft," says Time Warner cable spokesperson Maureen Huff. But FON's Rees says the company is working to partner with several broadband providers, contending that the service will actually help providers encourage broadband adoption.