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A Swedish startup is launching an app that allows users to automatically connect to friends' and families' Wi-Fi networks via Facebook.

Instabridge, which has been in beta since August 2012, will effectively act as a database of Wi-Fi logins, with users granting their Facebook friends access to their home or office Wi-Fi hub details, or requesting access to theirs. It's as quick and straight-forward as a friend request, but instead of asking for friendship status permission, you're requesting to automatically save their Wi-Fi details.


The free Android-only app is launching today, 26 November, in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, with a December launch predicted for the UK, and the rest of Europe and the US to follow in early 2013. The company is launching with a promise to build the largest Wi-Fi network in the world. Of course, it's helped in this by the fact that the Wi-Fi hubs it will use already exist -- they're in the homes of your friends, relatives and acquaintances.

Users can login via Facebook once the app is downloaded, then select which people they would like to add to their Wi-Fi network.

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Anyone who is selected will then immediately have their device configured to access the user's home hub -- when they come over they won't need to scramble around with passwords and logins. When you change your Wi-Fi password, the app automatically updates the information so anyone connected won't have to reload to get the update. You can also delete friends off your Wi-Fi network (you won't have to change your password to oust a few new enemies) and request access to any of your Facebook friends' networks.

What's interesting is the network's potential to grow and really become the world's largest. Every time a user adds a new Wi-Fi network, say at a café or a shop, anyone they have granted initial access to will also automatically be able to login to that new network. The same goes for offices, so a few security issues could potentially arise.


Instabridge CEO Niklas Agevik told Wired.co.uk the idea came about after he watched consumer habits, and realised Wi-Fi is more often used in the home than on the go. "When I was [working] at Ericsson, we were launching mobile TV," explains Agevik. "Everyone was expecting that most usage would be when people were mobile. It turned out to be the other way around.

Most usage was in people's homes. The typical use case was that the kids were occupying the TV, while the parents were lying on the sofa behind the kids watching mobile TV. So from there I learned that most data usage on smartphones is in people homes."

Instabridge, which has bases in Stockholm and New York and is made up of five full-time staff and two advisors, carried out a survey to back up the theory. It found that 79 percent of respondents wanted to use Wi-Fi when they were in other people's homes, but found it too much of a hassle. "We started thinking about Wi-Fi and how difficult it was to use and decided there must be a better way... Most Wi-Fi access is now from smartphones but most Wi-Fi solutions are still laptop-centric.

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We radically simplify access to Wi-Fi networks by building a network based on trust. Users will find themselves using Wi-Fi in new situations, lowering their mobile data usage, increasing battery life and increasing data rates."

The app has already been tested by 300 people and 1,300 others have signed up for the app. It essentially has the potential to become as big as Facebook's one billion users allow. "We'll be launching friends of friends support tonight," explained Agevik ahead of the launch. "The typical user has 30,000-plus friends of friends on Facebook. Being able to request access to those hotspots means that you get a huge network of Wi-Fi that you can use. "We don't just want to make it easier to use Wi-Fi in homes and offices. We want to make any Wi-Fi easily accessible, regardless of if it's in a café, a commercial Wi-Fi hotspot at an airport or your university."

With the soft launch in the Nordic and Baltic regions, the only drawback will be the absence of iOS. Instabridge set out to build for both platforms but, says Agevik, "in June we realised we were not going to get the quality we wanted if we were doing both simultaneously". "We ended up choosing Android because it is just growing so fast right now and we wanted to be where the puck was going to be in six months. But we all love iOS and Apple and the next platforms for us to target are iOS and OS X."


Instabridge, which was named one of the top 50 startups to watch at the Pioneers Festival in Vienna this year, has also found a commercial partner in Samsung and there will be a separate version launching for the tech giant's NFC-enabled devices. "Instabridge makes it significantly easier to use Wi-Fi, and connecting to your friends' Wi-Fi by just tapping your phone against an NFC sticker or performing a simple one-click move is a fantastic user experience," said Samsung Nordic's sales and marketing manager Patrik Andersson in a statement.

Agevik says the app, which is free to download, will be getting most of its revenue direct from mobile operators and device manufacturers -- it is working with the former to help control the "mobile data explosion" they are experiencing by reducing 3G usage among subscribers by "30 percent or more"; with the latter, to help them get a better Wi-Fi experience on devices.

Though Instabridge has only been downloaded by 300 test subjects to date, the simplicity it is offering to get more people connected more of the time, with what is as straight-forward as a Facebook like, should be appealing to a wide audience. "Feedback has been very positive," says Agevik. "This is a huge pain point for many people and Instabridge is solving that problem."