Comcast is going to turn people's Houston routers into public WIFI hotspots

[Anonymous persona]

I found the following interesting: Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle reports (warning: paywalled) that Comcast plans to turn 50,000 home routers into public Wi-Fi hotspots without their users providing consent. Comcast plans to eventually convert 150,000 home routers into a city-wide WiFi network. A similar post (with no paywall) by the same author on the SeattlePI Tech Blog explains the change. From the post on SeattlePI: "What's interesting about this move is that, by default, the feature is being turned on without its subscribers' prior consent. It's an opt-out system ? you have to take action to not participate. Comcast spokesman Michael Bybee said on Monday that notices about the hotspot feature were mailed to customers a few weeks ago, and email notifications will go out after it's turned on. But it's a good bet that this will take many Comcast customers by surprise

[Brandon H Supervisor]

is this legal? i wouldn't think they'd legally be able to do something like this without consent

[trag3dy]

Stay classy comcast.

[Anonymous persona]

is this legal? i wouldn't think they'd legally be able to do something like this without consent

well according to comcast they sent out a notice... I'm not sure though

[spacer]

Why are they waiting to send out emails until after the change? Just send it out now and after. Email is free.

 

This is some major scumbaggery, regardless of when that email is sent out.

[xrobwx71]

I'm a Comcast customer in NW Florida and you can bet your ass I'll be watching this.  :crazy:

[Lizardslap]

I wonder how this will effect people with data caps especially since Im sure most of it will be moocher neighbors anyway

[xrobwx71]

I use this: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wireless_network_watcher.html

To watch connections on my router.

[Slugsie]

BT do a similar thing in the UK. The public WiFi part is completely separate to the private network the subscriber has. Any data used on the public side doesn't count against any private data caps. It's a great system as any BT customers can access the BT WiFi hotspots when you're away from home for no extra cost. If Comcast do the same then there shouldn't be anything to worry about.

[trag3dy]

BT do a similar thing in the UK. The public WiFi part is completely separate to the private network the subscriber has. Any data used on the public side doesn't count against any private data caps. It's a great system as any BT customers can access the BT WiFi hotspots when you're away from home for no extra cost. If Comcast do the same then there shouldn't be anything to worry about.

 

Except for people hogging your bandwidth when you want it.

[siah1214]

They already do this if you don't know how to set up your router. By default it creates an "Xfinity" wifi that's available to anyone with a comcast account. I have yet to find a residential area in my city where I couldn't get free wifi. 

[Slugsie]

I guess that depends on where you are and how much bandwidth you have. I have no knowledge of how/if BT do any form of traffic shaping, but you would hope that the subscriber whose line it is gets priority.

 

Where I am I doubt anyone ever uses the public side of my broadband.

[Roger H. Veteran]

Don't they already do this? The "Xfinity" boxes all do this already with Cablevision and other MSOs seeing $$$$$ in it and jumping on the bandwagon too.

 

My sister has Comcast in DC area and her's was already setup with a "Xfinity" SSID separate from her chosen in one. I turned it off but yeah, they are already doing this AFAIK.

Except for people hogging your bandwidth when you want it.

 

This doesn't use your bandwidth FYI - it's on a separate VLAN.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

This doesn't use your bandwidth FYI - it's on a separate VLAN.

if that's truly the case then i have less problem with the idea

[Showan]

Why are they waiting to send out emails until after the change? Just send it out now and after. Email is free.

 

This is some major scumbaggery, regardless of when that email is sent out.

 

 

wow this planet is small... We are in the same state... :woot:

This sucks...  

 

I use to have Comcast...  But I never use their hardware...

 

Own my Motorola Surfboard modem... And I own my cheesy Linksys Wireless router...

[neufuse Veteran]

how is this news? Comcast already did this in a lot of their territory, they already did it up here in PA all people that rent a Comcast gateway now have a XfinityWireless SSID that they CAN turn off from their account management portal...

 

this hotspot does NOT count against your internet usage, it is NOT tied to your account in any way besides you having the ability to turn it off... anything that happens on it is not your legal responsibility as Comcast assumes all liability on it.. it is completely segmented off from anything you'd get on your LAN side of the gateway  and customers that access it must be Comcast customers logging in with their Comcast user / pass, no one else can use it besides Comcast authorized users..

 

it has no impact on your bandwidth / throughput / anything else as you have priority on all DOCSIS traffic to your LAN over the xfinity wireless SSID

I wonder how this will effect people with data caps especially since Im sure most of it will be moocher neighbors anyway

 

 

has ZERO effect on your usage its a separate network

and remember this only impacts people who use an Xfinity wireless gateway, no other routers / emta's or modems are impacted... only Comcast xfinity branded devices

[Anonymous persona]

well I just have to wonder how it doesn't somehow effect your bandwith

[neufuse Veteran]

well I just have to wonder how it doesn't somehow effect your bandwith

QOS and VLAN's...... Comcast does a good job of isolating networks... their Phone system goes through the cable system too and their keep it isolated.. in this case your xfinityWiFi SSID is tied to a VLAN Comcast controls with a lower priority QOS tag then your normal WAN traffic into your LAN

 

and since it's all tagged, they also know it does not count against your usage at all... HOWEVER it does count against the usage of who ever is logged into the hotspot... since you have to log in, it will count what you use on that hotspot as bandwidth usage on your account, not the account of the hotspot gateway account owner

[Brandon H Supervisor]

well I just have to wonder how it doesn't somehow effect your bandwith

probably extra throttling on the vlan would be my guess

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

If you are leasing their equipment, then I'm sure it's a hundred percent legal. Does anyone read contracts anymore? (I don't have an ISP anymore since my laptop was stolen, had my service terminated. My ISP is now at&t) I was with suddenlink, and I'm pretty sure if memory serves me correctly, that they reserve the right or rights to make changes to their service without legally having to inform the end user, after all, it's their equipment, and correct me if I'm wrong, but they are allowed to do with it what they wish. Either way, I'd switch ISP's for that foolish decision on their part.

[neufuse Veteran]

probably extra throttling on the vlan would be my guess

even if you have a 150Mbit connection, these gateways are 8x4's at the low end so they can support 343 Mbit down and 122 Mbit up so there is a lot of room to grow, and Comcast is pushing 16x4 modems in some areas now which allow up to 686 Mbit down and 122Mbit up... the hotspots are limited to around 25Mbit so you don't have much to worry about

[HawkMan]

BT do a similar thing in the UK. The public WiFi part is completely separate to the private network the subscriber has. Any data used on the public side doesn't count against any private data caps. It's a great system as any BT customers can access the BT WiFi hotspots when you're away from home for no extra cost. If Comcast do the same then there shouldn't be anything to worry about.

Howe it still uses router capacity.

 

It reduces the shared bandwidth available to you.

And more importantly routers can only handle a limited amount of throughput and open connections, some dumbass with a default uTorrent setup that starts 50 thousand connections will completely bring down the router. That's not even taking into account saturating the upstream making you unable to request data, or saturating the CPU power of the router and so on.

[HawkMan]

even if you have a 150Mbit connection, these gateways are 8x4's at the low end so they can support 343 Mbit down and 122 Mbit up so there is a lot of room to grow, and Comcast is pushing 16x4 modems in some areas now which allow up to 686 Mbit down and 122Mbit up... the hotspots are limited to around 25Mbit so you don't have much to worry about

 

Data throughput is only one element, a badly(ie default) configured uTorrent will still bring it down.

[sava700]

This is why you purchase your own modem and router and control the network you have yourself.

[Anonymous persona]

OH BTW, To the people asking if this is news, etc...  It's just about now 100,00+ new routers will be getting this in Houston , and I thought it might be important , because the hacker group "Anonymous" on twitter warned people about it so I thought it might be a big deal.... (from their official account)