Comcast To Expand Public WiFi Using Home Internet Connections

Bob the Super Hamste writes "The St. Paul Pioneer press is reporting that Comcast is planning on expanding its network of public WiFi hot spots in the Twin Cities area by using home internet connections and user's WiFi routers. Customers will be upgraded to new wireless routers that will have 2 wireless networks, one for the home users and one for the general public. Subscribers to Comcast's Xfinity service and customers that participate in the public WiFi program will be allowed free access to the public WiFi offered by this service. Non Comcast customers get 2 free sessions a month each lasting 1 hour with additional sessions costing money. The article mentions that a similar service already exists and is provided by the Spain-based company Fon."

Comments

How about no

[YrWrstNtmr]

Does no work for you?

Many, many issues abound here. How secure is the separation between the two networks? What protections do I have in case of someone using my connection maliciously? How will this affect my total bandwidth and speed?

Re:How about no

[Jane Q. Public]

"Does no work for you?"

Yes, "no" works for me, but for completely different reasons.

I already do this, using my own cable adapter and my own router. And it is free for my neighbors and passersby to use. No charges from Comcast or anybody else. I do it as a free public service.

And you have NO LEGAL LIABILITY for strangers using your Wi-Fi to perform illegal acts without your permission. Any more than an "internet cafe" does. People use it as they please, and they are responsible for their own actions. There have been many, many court cases over this by now.

Think about it. If somebody came into your yard without explicit permission, grabbed your lawn de-thatching tool, and hit somebody over the head with it, would you be "liable" for murder? Hell, no. Nor are you liable, generally speaking, if you (legally) loan someone your gun and they shoot somebody with it. Unless of course you knew their intent ahead of time and loaned it to them specifically for doing that. But we're talking here about somebody doing something without your foreknowledge.

So why should a router be any different? (Hint: it isn't.)

By the way: the EFF recommends doing this as a courtesy to your neighbors and the public, and assures you that there is no liability.

Again generally speaking, about the only time you are liable for someone's unauthorized use of your tools is when it is an automobile, and even that law is on pretty shaky legal ground.

So the cutomers get a kick back?

[future assassin]

I mean you're using my house and internet connections to make money from me. I"d expect 50% commission.

let me get this straight.

[Anonymous Coward]

So Comcast is selling people bandwidth and then reselling that bandwidth through the customers location? Reselling that bandwidth using customers electricity?

Thank you, no thanks.

Wi-Fi Crowding

[SIGBUS]

Aside from the trust issues mentioned elsewhere, the other thing I don't like about this is that it'll flood the neighborhood with even more 2.4 GHz clutter.

5 GHz is not a panacea; it's astonishingly poor at penetrating walls, to the point that I treat my 5 GHz AP as only useful in the same room.

Safe Harbor = Safe Downloads?

[HockeyPuck]

From the article:

Legal liability. Those who fear being blamed for misuse of their public Wi-Fi signals are said to be protected under a "safe harbor" doctrine akin to that protecting Internet service providers. In other words, they're likely not liable for the mischief of porn purveyors or music pirates.

So when I'm doing all sorts of legal stuff I stay on my private network, and then when I want to switch over to download illegal content, I just switch over to the free comcast network and I'm all set?

Overrated?

[drinkypoo]

OK, so it's not the best comment ever, but it's a fact that you can't just go to one website for all the devices supported by some variant of tomato. The plethora of tomato variants means chasing around the web to figure out which flavor[s] will even support your hardware, and if they have the features you need. DD-WRT (or for that matter OpenWRT) provides a single website which permits a quick compatibility check. DD-WRT in particular has extensive and well-indexed installation instructions for specific hardware. Tomato has none of that. If you don't think that's useful information, by all means, mod this comment "Overrated" as well.