appears to have a close connection with its subject . it may require cleanup to comply with wikipedia s content policies particularly neutral point of view . please discuss further on the talk page . april 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message open garden inc. type private industry network protocols mobile applications mesh networks peer to peer software architecture founded san francisco california 2011 2011 founder micha benoliel ceo co founder stanislav shalunov cto co founder greg hazel co founder taylor ongaro co founder headquarters san francisco california number of locations 1 area served worldwide products firechat tethering production output 1 500 000 6 000 000 installs november 2012 1 2 number of employees 11 50 2014 website opengarden.com open garden inc. is an american company based in san francisco california that develops a free closed source mobile application called firechat that enables peer to peer mobile internet connection sharing with faster and more efficient data transmissions by automatically and actively choosing and switching to the best available network without requiring users to manually sift through available networks to find the best one available . 3 open garden supports and promotes open wireless networks and is a member of the open wireless coalition which was founded by the electronic frontier foundation . 4 contents 1 history 2 products 2.1 features 3 awards and recognitions 4 carrier blocking 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit open garden inc. was co founded in 2011 by businessman micha benoliel systems architect taylor ongaro internet architect stanislav shalunov and software developer greg hazel in san francisco california in the united states . 5 6 the company s co founders share similar backgrounds in internet infrastructure and peer to peer technology . in the period between 2004 and 2005 benoliel was working with skype as well as negotiating the deals with european telcommunication companies that provided the fundamentals for skype in and skype out . ongaro spent much of his career with ibm s federal chief technology office . meanwhile shalunov has spent much of his career working on internet infrastructure in the beginning at internet2 the us academic network consortium then at the peer to peer filesharing service bittorrent where he met hazel lead developer of the popular bittorrent client utorrent used by more than 200 million peer to peer users worldwide . 7 currently open garden is most popular in the united states followed by india mexico france brazil united kingdom italy spain and germany . 8 the company is already talking to a number of mobile carriers in a few countries about cooperation and is currently working on raising additional capital . 9 kevin restivo a senior analyst from international data corporation stated that open garden is most likely to be popular among consumers in emerging mobile markets such as africa where relatively few people have cell phones incomes are low and people are more likely to share their phone service . 10 products edit main article firechat open garden previously offered a software solution of the same name a proprietary internet community based connection sharing software application 11 12 13 that shares internet access with other devices using wi fi or bluetooth . 14 when users have no direct internet connection available within open garden s network the application automatically connects to the internet through links to other devices such as laptops or mobile phones . when the person whose internet connection is being shared leaves the network the application automatically detects and connects to the next best available connection 15 by introducing a way to access the internet over multiple channels at one time improving speed and reliability . such a network is self healing and self forming where each of the nodes operates only with local knowledge and together they build a network using a probabilistic distributed algorithm . because open garden s solution is built on software rather than on hardware it requires no operational expenses and minimal capital expenses from mobile operators compared to alternatives such as femtocells and microcells . after raising 2 million seed money from a group of leading technology industry angel investors 16 open garden started developing and incorporating roll out multi hop connectivity and channel bonding into their application features that have been on the company s roadmap since it was launched . 17 the new funding team was led by allan green 18 an early investor in phone.com and mobileway david ulevitch ceo of opendns derek parham creator of google apps for business and digital garage which also invested in twitter and path . 19 as the application is free for download open garden s key people stated that they intend to use a freemium business model where they plan to obtain revenues from special enterprise level services for business customers sponsorships and advertising . they also said they aim for a freemium model with extra features like vpn access for business users . 20 the application was available for android devices and mac . features edit seamless connectivity this feature enables users to connect any supported device to the mesh and thus to the internet without any installation configuration or pairing . open garden uses different physical ways to connect in general where devices learn about each other in a variety of ways instead of bluetooth discovery including through a cloud service and using local chatter . channel bonding nowadays users access the internet using only one path . open garden introduced a way to access the internet over multiple paths at once thus improving speed and reliability . automatic path choice once connected devices find a path to the internet also completely automatically . if a path fails a new one will be chosen and if necessary new connections will be established with other devices . multi hop when there is no direct internet connection devices will access the internet through chains of other devices . again if necessary network chains will grow to reach the internet connection . 21 awards and recognitions edit open garden and its product were introduced on october 11 2011 at the android open 2011 where they won the startup showcase award . 22 on may 26 2012 open garden won the most innovative startup award at the techcrunch disrupt conference 2012 . 23 toward the end of conference one of the judges venture capitalist fred wilson from union square ventures said that open garden was his favorite all along stating that what the company does is the most worthy of the conference name disrupt . 24 the following year on october 23 2013 open garden won the g startup award at the global mobile innovator s conference . 25 carrier blocking edit see also censorship by google play from the beginning mobile carriers have been afraid of losing revenue they might obtain from mobile internet users . at & t one such carrier requested that google play block its customers access to open garden . at & t spokesman mark siegel stated that open garden violates company policies by enabling unauthorized tethering and mobile connection sharing . open garden s founder and ceo micha benoliel stated that his company does not do anything illegal . the block remains in force as of january 2014 but can be circumvented by sideloading of the apk made available on open garden s mobile website . see also edit mesh networking overlay network peer to peer android operating system references edit open garden app . retrieved 14 november 2012 . wifi tethering app . retrieved 14 november 2012 . avc may 24 2012 . open garden . retrieved 15 november 2012 . the case for open wireless . november 16 2012 . retrieved 17 november 2012 . frederic lardinois may 21 2012 . open garden lets you crowdsource your mobile connectivity . retrieved 24 august 2012 . open garden co founders . retrieved 24 august 2012 . open garden . open garden the story . retrieved 14 november 2012 . open garden exceeds half million installs the best way to remain connected on the fly . october 17 2012 . retrieved 17 november 2012 . frederic lardinois june 20 2012 . 100 000 downloads later tc disrupt finalist open garden launches update improves user experience . techcrunch . retrieved 15 november 2012 . rachel metz june 4 2012 . could you spare some internet access . mit technology review . retrieved 15 november 2012 . about . opengarden.com . open garden app lets you share mobile internet access video . www.huffingtonpost.com . 11 june 2012 . open garden lets you crowdsource your mobile connectivity . techcrunch.com . 21 may 2012 . apps . opengarden.com . natasha baker june 11 2012 . new app allows sharing of mobile internet access . reuters . retrieved 15 november 2012 . angel.co . angel list open garden . retrieved 17 november 2012 . frederic lardinois september 12 2012 . open garden a techcrunch disrupt ny battlefield finalist raises 2m seed round . techcrunch . retrieved 15 november 2012 . businessweek . allan green executive profile & biography businessweek . ryan kim september 12 2012 . open garden raises 2m to create crowdsourced mesh networks . gigaom . retrieved 19 november 2012 . nancy owano june 5 2012 . open garden plants app for open network . phys.org . retrieved 17 november 2012 . open garden . open garden features . retrieved 19 november 2012 . androidopen 2011 open garden startup showcase winner . october 11 2011 . retrieved 17 november 2012 . opengarden.net . open garden launches at techcrunch disrupt nyc 2012 wins most innovative startup award . retrieved 14 november 2012 . olga kharif june 21 2012 . micha benoliel s open garden . businessweek . retrieved 15 november 2012 . opengarden.net . open garden wins the global mobile innovator s g startup competition . retrieved 13 january 2013 . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title open garden & oldid 743699451 categories companies based in san franciscosoftware companies based in the san francisco bay areamesh networkingnetworking companies of the united stateshidden categories wikipedia articles with possible conflicts of interest from april 2015 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages fran ais edit links this page was last modified on 10 october 2016 at 19 44 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike 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