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Comcast Converting 50,000 Houston Home Routers Into Public WiFi Hotspots
New submitter green453 writes: 'As a Houston resident with limited home broadband options, 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."'
This follows similar efforts in Chicago and the Twin Cities.
So does this mean that charges for copyright infringement (or other such activities) will no longer be brought against people based on IP Address evidence alone? Because this certainly gives a lot of people a lot of plausible deniability.
Secondly, how are the clients being compensated for the hotspot service they are now providing?
TFS talks about "users" providing consent, not owners. So I assume this is Comcast's equipment.
But does this mean no more data cap? And if a subscriber cancels service, does the public hotspot shut down?
What makes me think this is not Public WiFi? You're going to have to pay to use it.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Where I live, in central Connecticut, all three of the major ISPs (Comcast, Cox, AT&T) have Wi-Fi that rides off the back of routers. I haven't actually tried to use it, since I think they charge some ridiculous fee to connect to it. If it was free, I'd probably give it a go.
This is about making some congressman or senator happy. They must have agreed somewhere to offer free wifi or something for cities in return for maintaining their monopolies. And this is how they're delivering.
On the backs of their stupid customers.
Seriously... if you have comcast... cancel them now.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
How long before someone releases a tool that would have a Linux-running computer or device with a WiFi card masquerading as an official Comcast WiFi hotspot an collecting the usernames & passwords of the users trying to connect ?
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
NoFi.
The real problem here is people logging on to "comcast wifi" or whatever it's called using the same credentials they use to log on to their ISP account. How hard will it be for nogoodniks to set up hotspots called "comcast wifi" (or whatever) and scoop up all the credentials?
Here in NoVa Cox is doing the same thing.
Best Slashdot Co
thousands of wifi routers providing free service. i might have to go back to a dumb phone and just carry around a small tablet everywhere i go. why pay extortion prices for cell data when wifi will be literally everywhere
My guess is that you'll be compensated by having access to a city-wide wifi hotspot.
As always, such initiatives rely on the fact that most of the population are ignorant and passive. Aluminum foil times x 50,000 would solve this issue, but they know this is not happening.
Yeah, I'm thinking if they start using the equipment they charged you for already, and the service they charged you for already, to provide public wifi for people who are not you, they should refund you the equipment cost and completely lift your monthly cap. Otherwise, If they require your username and password to access the network, then ding the person who is utilizing the network for the data, not the person whose network just got hijacked.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
in the USA the big cable companies provide FREE wifi service to their customers
Seriously... if you have comcast... cancel them now.
Great idea. Everyone should immediately switch to one of the other many alternatives.
I can buy one every year and it still comes out cheaper than renting from Comcast. Also the modem does not have wifi built in, it connects to my router and that takes care of things.
In a way I can see where this is nice but then I can see where it can lead to oh IP used ad house X was downloading Ke$ha music (or worse) and you have no
The usage is tied to the visitor's account, not necessarily the home owner. Does lead to interesting questions though. Is a subscriber usage limited (capped) when using other peoples wifi, if not, what happens when the home owner logs into their own router as a visitor?
And, if their security is incompetently implemented (which it likely will be), who bears liability?
If the police show up with a warrant saying you downloaded movies, or kiddie porn, or participated in a terrorist chatroom -- you're pretty much screwed, and all because Comcast decided to re-sell what you've bought.
And, really, if all of these routers are going to become public hotspots (which apparently has a limited interpretation to be "for other Comcast subscribers"), why wouldn't I just use someone else's hotspot?
I suspect this will cause more problems than it fixes, except for Comcast who will make out like bandits. As you say, billing for overages should be pretty lucrative -- "sorry sir, it says here you've used a massive amount of bandwidth, so here's your bill, no, we can't prove you did it, but it was on your hotspot so good enough for us."
I fail to understand how these companies keep saying "ZOMG, teh bandwidth it too expensive to give you" and then combine it with "and we'll now try to get 50% more subscribers on our already overloaded network". At least, I fail to see how they can be honest about that instead of just saying "of course we're screwing you over and selling more than we have, and of course our monthly charges are wrong".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
As it stands now, many locations still have only one option when it comes to high speed internet (excluding satellite, but that's not really high speed). Comcast is now trying to merge with Time Warner. Talk about one hell of a monopoly.
Now they argue they don't compete in enough markets, but think about it, it's the internet. With a combined merger, they will have a much easier time charging content providers for bandwidth to costumers.
So now you, the customer, are going to be higher premiums for any online services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. Because when these companies have to start shelling out to internet providers, they have to raise their prices in order to stay profitable.
So having these huge open wifi networks seems like a good deal for a consumer, it's actually just a way for these companies to get increased revenue, using the bandwidth you've purchased from them, extending it "freely" to other people, and using this as a way to entice companies such as Netflix to pay them a higher streaming premium.
Basically, and in essence, this is a way for Comcast to extend it's user base without extending it's customer base, to leverage higher bandwidth fees from content providers.
There have been significant advances in networking since 2002. You should read up.
This is why I don't use ISP provided equipment. I have my own cable modem (which is just a "basic" model without router functionality), and my "router" is a custom built Linux box (it handles the wifi as well with hostapd).
Well, that, or they'll track have the wifi access over a different VLAN, like similar schemes in other areas do. I can imagine someone that's about to go over their quota switching to the public hotspot's ssid to avoid charges, though. I'm not sure what comcast plans to do about that situation.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
First, they charged me for the connection to my house at a certain speed. Then, they throttled everything I'd want that speed for. Then, they charged Netflix for the connection to my house. Now, they're offering the connection to my house to other customers when it already can't keep up with my needs or come close to their advertised speeds. What am I even paying for? The joy of twice monthly hour long phone calls to resolve outages?
I bet they'll count this as "upgrading their infrastructure," just another fine example of the innovation they claim will come to an end if ISPs are better regulated.
Ok, I'm generally on the side of the ISPs (I work for one) but this is nuts.
On another note, I totally want this. It immunizes you from DMCA letters.
"Sorry Comcast, I'm not pirating movies. It could have been anyone!"
There's only one cable coming from the pole to my home, so how is it a different connection? Of course it will use your bandwidth, just as every other Comcast customer in my area affects my bandwidth.
And, of course, the CT will inevitably find these hotspots being used for so-called "infringing downloads" and proceed to hold the people the routers are assigned to responsible for them.
Malibu Media is going to LOVE this!
Or swaps logins with another comcast customer, so they each use each others logins on their own routers.
So other comcast customers can stroll through and leech my bandwidth, that I pay for? Good thing I don't use a comcast wifi router.
From what little I understand, the public WiFi stuff is on a separate upstream channel.
It's not using your bandwidth, but it is using bandwidth that Comcast doesn't want to make available to you, which isn't quite the same thing.
As a relatively pleased Time-Warner customer I am sooooo looking forward to Comcast acquiring TW.
[Insert pithy quote here]
They'll probably just attach all traffic associated with your login to your account, whether it's on your cablemodem or on the wifi (if the wifi is comcast-customer-only, they'll have to have some way to authenticate that you're a comcast customer). Which will suck if/when someone gets your credentials (either by sniffing the radio or setting up a fake hotspot).
Yep. Heard reports of it in these parts (Tennessee) a few days ago. I have Comcast but I also have my own modem and router.
An idle router will surely use less electricity.
How long until someone presents them with a bill for the electricity use? It ain't free you know.
while it may not have the exact same content as the paywalled link, it does provide information about it http://blog.chron.com/techblog...
I would rather have a system in which the public bandwidth comes out of the bandwidth I contract for, with my being compensated for the bandwidth the public uses and my being able to limit the public usage fraction either by bandwidth (personal QoS, I suppose) or by time of day. The marketing people could call this service your "Internet solar roof."
There's also been significant advances in incompetence, and corporate greed.
And those two are things you should be really worried about.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Now I can start streaming TV episodes I missed once again, just as I did in the golden age of two years ago, even when my cable provider isn't one of the three tiny companies in the network apps "Verify My Cable Carrier" list.
Sounds like what FON has been doing for years except on an opt-in basis.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I gave the CC built in WiFi a shot but it's horrible coverage and firmware (features) turned me away. I did a live chat and had them turn the WiFi off and they did it immediately, that way I could just use my own. It comes back on automatically about every 6 months (I'm assuming because of some upgrade) and I just live chat with them and have them turn it off. It has a big bright light when it's on so it's easy to tell. If this happens to me (near Houston), I'll just contact them again.
Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
I would assume only Comcast ISP subscribers would be able to access the 'public' WiFi network. Why wouldn't whatever a WiFi user consumes be 'charged' against the data cap on their wired connection?
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Anything that isn't illegal is legal -- that's how the system works in the US.
What about this is illegal? If you can't answer that, you have your answer.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
I'm glad I have my own modem. The idea that I now have to share the bandwidth that I'm paying for (and not getting) with anyone that happens to drive by, is infuriating.
So I guess wrapping your modem in tin foil isn't so stupid after all.
You don't get to be a slashdot ed. by being able to control your addictions!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
still eats up CPU and Wifi Spectrum and cable node space.
You are leasing your router from them. They own it, as well as the network. As long as they provide you with the service level you are paying for (which is some certain speed with absolutely no guarantees of speed or uptime), you really have no right to complain.
As long as these people are allowed to bundle the router with the service and force you to use it, oh well too bad so sad.
Cable broadband provider Telenet in Belgium did the same thing. When my old DOCSIS 2 modem died, they gave me (without any options) one of their all-in-one fancy new 'modems', with built in router with private + public wifi. To manage my modem settings i had to go to their webpage to change MY modem/router/lan/wifi settings, which would then be pushed to my modem locally. So if they're site is down (which happens quite regularly imo, for 'maintenance'), i can't manage my own LAN ! Heaven forbid if someone ever finds an exploit in those modems, all of their customers' LAN's will be compromised. I re-disabled the public wifi several times, after it got mysteriously re-enabled. Forget about calling support, you always get brain dead morons that won't deviate from their silly 'please reboot your modem' flowchart even though you can provide perfect logical reasoning to locate the problem. Power users are a nuisance to them. Repeated calls to support to ask for a normal modem as a consumer were all fruitless. I later played my cards different with the business support desk (as a business owner) and with some social engineering was able to get someone to give permission(!) for me to get a normal modem at my local telenet supplier. I have since installed this modem with behind it a router running custom firmware, where I control my LAN & WIFI. Speeds even more than doubled too ! As of last year Liberty Global own a 57.8% stake in Telenet. A USA telecommunications and television company that is buying up broadband providers worldwide. With recent revelations this is also worrisome, but we don't have another choice for cable provider. Stay vigilant people, and demand what you have the rights to !
1. So how does that figure into bandwidth caps that Comcast seems to like to impose? If it's a public hotspot it could significantly increase usage.
2. When the inevitable request for an IP address is made who is on the hook to be the named John / Jane Doe? Sure, the router assigns IP addresses but how do you cough up the name? Just give the router owner's name?
3. Does logging into a hotspot imply consent to capture data streams? Probably not, but the person with access to the router could do some snooping if they were so inclined.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The problem lies in thinking they'd be honest about anything. The cable ISPs are monopolies or duopolies in most areas so they know they have the power to do whatever they want to do. Add in their size and lobbying muscle, and you have a group of companies who feel they can do anything they want with no repercussions.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
there sure is a lot of paranoid stupidity about how tech works.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
I live in south King County and logged into my Comcast account to see what all the fuss was about. Because I have a separate router running DD-WRT and it is connected to my Arris cable modem I do not have the Xfinity WiFi option; or perhaps it is because my Arris cable modem does not have WiFi available when checking it's IP address of 192.168.100.1. Using their online Xfinity WiFi finder, one person near me has Xfinity WiFi and one person near where my dad lives does as well.
"Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
my cable modem doesn't do wifi and isn't the cable co's property. Next time don't rent a POS modem from the cable co? The NSA and cable cos would prefer otherwise, of course.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Comcast is stealing the homeowner's electricity! This stealing is the basis for criminal prosecution of people who install spy cameras in homes and businesses -- stealing electricity to run the camera and transmitter. Even though Comcast owns the device, it does not own the electricity that powers it -- the home owner does. A User License Agreement does not give Comcast a License to Steal Electricity for their use.
No. Actually incompetence and corporate greed have been pretty constant for a few hundred years.
Maybe they seem new to you because you just started paying attention. Some of us actually read our History textbooks when they covered Standard Oil and the Dutch East India Company.
why is this so complicated? comcast knows when you are at home, and when you are "roaming" on to other customers' wifi hotspots (because they make you login to them). wherever you are, your cap is applied to your account.
no, i don't have any special knowledge here, it just HAS to work that way or it's ripe for abuse.
Change your URL to http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1
Is the same in the UK, you do get access to their higher powered public wi-fi as well but due to the fact that their supplied routers barely extend around the house they are intended to feed let alone become some kind of public hot-spot doesnt work very well from the few I have tried to access. I believe the traffic on your own SSID is prioritised too (confirmation needed though). Nothing to stop you using a laptop connected to the public SSID for your illegal downloading though I suppose. Damn those wardriving freeloaders.
If a more reputable company for customer service rolling this out would probably be praised but it's comcast so everyone will hate on it. They pretty much have to make it opt out because no one ever reads anything so it would be 1 person per square mile opted in.
I for one would absolutely love having broadband wifi anywhere in my city. But again it's comcast so they will probably charge more for the service, pissing everyone off.
Time to start a mesh net.
This message was brought to you by the American Association for Bandwith Waste and Expendature.
No, while the individual greed and douchebaggery of corporations has more or less remained constant, with the advent of the interwebs it can be done much more efficiently, on a larger scale, and usually involving acquisitions, outsourcing, and H1B visas.
The overall effectiveness of being a greedy, incompetent bastard has been vastly improved in its output. CEOs now can direct the suck from a centralized location in real time while viewing dashboard metrics, thereby vastly improving productivity.
I'd give you a smiley face to say I'm joking, except I'm not entirely sure I am.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
One week when I was bored I opened up my wireless, waited for the inevitable leach, and then played routing games around the sick porn sites he visited. Increasingly, all traffic routed to http://www.kittenwar.com./ The leaching soon stopped.
Your paid subscription here might provide the money to hire said editor. Oh wait Slashdot is provided for free, what do you expect for free??gezz
Jack of all trades,master of none
NEVER use what Comcast provides, buy your own equipment and don't allow ANYONE else access to it!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
If they require a Comcast customer login, then it's not a public wi-fi hotspot at all.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
But as a Comcast customer, I'm damn glad I don't lease my modem or router from them.
Maybe I should start selling a decent router and Comcast compatible modem on eBay as a pair, calling them something like "No Lease Comcast Hardware Kit - pays for itself in just 10 months!"
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Wish I had modpoints to mod this to -2, but Soulskill, you are definitely one of the top 3 best editors Slashdot has had, don't listen to these idiots.
So to get access to a Comcast customer's wi-fi, you also have to be a Comcast customer AND you are limited to a short amount of time per month.
I suspect what's going to happen soon is Comcast will start charging its customers per device, since visitor's computers/devices are now separated out from the homeowner's stuff. "So you own one iMac, three Kindle Fire tablets and an iPhone? That's five MACs connecting to our service - so here's the base charge, plus the $10/month surcharge per extra device."
I also expect there'll be a premium "feature" where Comcast customers can pay for additional "roaming" time on Comcast routers other than their own.
#DeleteChrome
For one, I don't want random people in their cars hanging out in front of my house - as we don't have a very large setback and wifi coverage is OK from the street.
Secondly, this signal interferes with my Airport Extreme I have sitting behind it. Once I upgraded to the new modem (only because the old one finally quit on me), I immediately called Comcast to disable the wifi (you can't do that with a button), as I was getting a whole lot of disconnects and failures to connect on wake on my MBPr.
Now it's all copacetic. If they didn't allow me to opt-out, I'd be furious. Typical of Comcast to turn your home into a wifi hotspot - it's so ill designed and inconsiderate. If they ran it outside for folks outside, that'd be much better.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Comcast will begin activating a feature in its Arris Touchstone Telephony Wireless Gateway Modems that sets up a public Wi-Fi hotspot alongside a residential Internet customer’s private home network. Other Comcast customers will be able to log in to the hotspots for free ...
there you go.
So if anyone is interested, I'm developing a new device called the Comcast Fucker(tm). Its a lead shield that you place over your home WiFi router.
This is a bad idea.
In Liberty, Rene
Here in holland and across europe the same is being done. The thing is, technically, many homes are hooked up with a line physically capable of say 20mpbs, but with only a 10mbps subscription. The extra bandwidth can be alotted to "guest users".
Similarly, even if someone has a 20(or more) mbps subscription on a 20mbps line, he/she won't be using all of it all of the time. So you can again use part of the bandwidth for guests. In this case it would be fair to give the original subscriber priority to use whatever he/she wants, and put the guests at a lower priority.
Oh, security wise they also separate the original subscriber from the guests.
I have the impression they do this "sensibly": the subscribers don't really have a valid reason to be upset about it.
And the thing is: If you're a subscriber, suddenly there are hundreds or thousands of places where you won't be using your 3G datalink but a wifi hotspot. Faster, cheaper!
if you skank some free cable tv
they are stealing more than that, all their customers are leasing equipment for their exclusive use, not to form a public charity.
I live in a suburb of Philadelphia, PA and comcast tried to do this to me. They did send me a notice though. I replaced their router with a third party wifi router and cable modem. I didn't trust that they would keep their traffic separate from my traffic and I didn't see how someone hanging off of my router wouldn't degrade my service.
-- soldack
I would opt out immediately. This is an immensely devious way to get other people to pay for a large WiFi buildout. I guess that there is no low that the telecom industry will stoop to in the name of a buck.
Slashdot gives me the option to disable ads, but for the longest time I didn't bother, because - heck - it's what pays the bills, plus I even bought something once through one of its ads.
Then the obnoxious oversized ads and overlayed popups started appearing, and suddenly disabling ads became the only way to even see the site content.
Now, even with ads "disabled", I still get ads. Nice job Slashdot.
... sooner I can cancel my Comcast internet service and just use my neighbor's.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
How many CEOs today have a standing army that report directly to them, which can murder people with impunity?
Because that used to be a thing.
If Comcast is setting up these wifi hotspots shouldn't they pay me rent for hosting it for them?
Comcast already has been doing this for some time where I live (SLC) and I've already found several suspicious open networks in various spots, all named "Cable WiFi". There's only one cable provider in town, and they're not shy about branding.
Shift happens. Fire it up.
I expect to get topic subject-lines that incorrectly state 'Public WiFi Hotspots' when the article is clearly about 'Comcast Subscriber-only WiFi Hotspots'.
I am surprised that the topic subject line was updated so quickly, frankly, when I pointed it out.
Too bad I didn't mention the other error...
*Still* negative function...
It will consume more electricity when someone else is using it. A trivial amount, perhaps, but none the less, more. Al mot of these things have overheating problems in the first place.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
So. Comcast is going to let their customers access the internet through other customer's wireless routers.
Good: you can get wifi in lots of places.
Bad: You're trying to do stuff with your connection and some other people are "borrowing" your bandwidth.
I'd be much more inclined to be happy about this if Comcast was paying customer A for helping provide service to customer B. But they're not. Customer A is paying for service, and Comcast is piggybacking on that to provide service to Customer B, without benefiting customer A at all.
I'm quite biased against Comcast, frankly. This is a good idea, for them. It will help get them customers. It's a good feature. And perhaps this will convince router makers to provide a "public hotspot" option on future routers, which will be throttled of course... But I doubt it.
I can't help but look at this and compare it to the ISPs that let you farm out your connection to your neighbors, and help you charge your neighbors whatever you want... even handling the billing for you. I think that's a much nicer feature, but that's just my opinion.
The intended customer is that guy in the free candy van parked in the alley behind your house. Don't worry. He's a fellow Comcast customer. He's totally legit. :D
1 - Bandwidth is finite. It must be controlled and limited. Users must endure caps and pay overage fees if they abuse the system.
2 - Bandwidth is so precious, in fact, that we need to charge for it twice: both the consumer and producer must pay. This is why we don't support Net Neutrality.
I'm fine with this model as long as it cuts both ways. After all Comcast is getting a free ride: they're using my electricity, their router is taking up space in my home, their users are consuming capacity both on my wireless network and my cable connection that I might otherwise consume. Therefore I must be compensated.
If comcast refuses to compensate me for my resources consumed in the pursuit of their commercial goals I have no choice but to snip the antenna wire in their router, or more realistically return it and purchase my own. In short: they can suck it.
Although not for Comcast but another major player, they likely are putting the "public" wifi on its own SSID, service-flow, and MAC/IP. This means that your modem will have a secondary data stream that can be enforced separately. About the only thing I'd be worried about is someone overwhelming the CPU as these are still underpowered home wifi devices.
The REAL problem is WiFi bandwidth. If somebody else is doing continuous downloads over your AP, that can definitely hurt your WiFi performance.
I know this is /. but still, some people really need to take off their tinfoil hats. Comcast is a perfect mix of four parts evil and one part asshole. There's no need to get all worked up over imaginary misdeeds when there are so many real ones to complain about.
Just get some metal screen and make a box to put the comcast router in. (you can just line a small cardboard food container with the screen)
Cut small holes to fit power cord, coax and ethernet cable through.
Connect the ethernet cable to your own router and BAM!! you are opted out.
Maybe just show us how it is done perfectly. You apparently know how to do this sort of thing, nigelo.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The way around this is to buy your own modem that doesn't have all of Comcast's cruft. The major chain electronics stores all have DOCSIS 3.x modems for sale, so you save the cost of leasing the equipment (which you can recoup in less than a year), and you can control who has access to your bandwidth.
I don't think the router CPU would be of any concern because they should be more than capable of forwarding at line rate. And as far as spectrum, you won't be using any extra channels because both SSIDs would be carried on the same channel. That being said, your channel utilization would go up, but again, if it is an N access point your cable connection will saturate long before the WLAN connection does. Quite frankly, the only thing that gets used up is your Internet bandwidth, unless they pull all the caps from a bandwidth perspective and throttle on a per-client basis.
Adding more clients will congest the router, and draw more power. Some people (like myself) disable the wifi on the crap routers they receive from their ISPs. Would this override that disable? It also features extra radiation going through your house, and makes it easy for people to find your router which you thought you were hiding by disabling SSID broadcasting.
I have a customer who is currently with Time Warner Cable and their speeds have gone down significantly over the last 6 months. They used to be able to access web sites with split-second response times. Now the average is at least 5 seconds before a web page comes up. I have placed numerous support calls, they come out and run their own hosted speed test which claims they are meeting speeds. They then leave saying there is nothing wrong, yet browsing is almost unusable. I believe they have QoS turned on so that their own speed tests run fine, yet the overall browsing experience is significantly worse. If they are playing these games now, what will happen when net-neutrality is eventually abolished by these big souless corporations?
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
High praise, considering they are down to 2 editors...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
'Has had', includes all previous editors of the site, not just the current ones.
I'd hate to see your edits if you don't understand even very simple grammar.
If this was the first instance of shoddy editing, I'd agree with you.
It's not. Not by a loooooooooong way.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
The flip side of that is that you have access to the wireless mesh as well if you want it. You're not only providing it, you can consume it as well.
And Comcast is not charging you for power. You have to provide power to the cable modem in order to use it, and you're paying that fee whether you provide your own, or you take theirs.
I do agree, however. Leasing a modem is stupid. A Motorola SB 6121 costs about 80 bucks at your local big box store and is fully compatible with the Comcast network (do not believe the sales people or the install techs when they try and make you doubt whether or not the modem will work with the Comcast network - it will. Comcast supports every cable modem vendor you can find in Best Buy and it's like). It'll pay for itself in under a year. Now, if you're using one of the Wireless gateways, then the cable modem is also acting as a router, so you'll need to buy one of those as well if you don't already have them, which takes you a little longer to reach your break even point. However, most folks only change service providers when they move, and most folks don't move frequently, so chances are you'll hit the break even point before then.
If someone has been paying a cable modem rental fee for like 5+ years, then that person is terrible at math.
If they require a Comcast customer login, then it's not a public wi-fi hotspot at all.
They do require Comcast credentials. It is indeed not a public / open / free WiFi hotspot.
Comcast's WiFi Location Map is the hot new burglary tool. Thieves are so thankful for the time savings. Soon we will hear old crooks lamenting to their children how when they were kids they had to break into half a dozen homes just to find one with laptops and tablets.
The British East India Company had a standing army of 280,000 men.
Please cite examples of a big company murdering people with impunity in the last 20 years.
Well ... let's see, there's Blackwater (nor apparently called Academi).
There's Halliburton, which had some pretty shady dealings.
And, here's a list of more of them.
Various oil companies have used varying degrees of 'private contractors' to intimidate, harass, murder, and otherwise mistreat the locals if they got in the way of exploration.
The US government hired some of these 'contractors' to do various things in Iraq, much of which sounds like it wasn't entirely above board.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Various oil companies have used varying degrees of 'private contractors' to intimidate, harass, murder, and otherwise mistreat the locals if they got in the way of exploration
Citation on the murder part?
They sell a service based on my power bill and my real property....
They do not compensate me...
They do not ask me....
They would owe me $$$$$
The technology is OK with me modulo the remote access into a smart device
inside my home. i.e. guest networks and other isolation tricks including
bandwidth management is a solved problem.
However I elect to not play and have my own firewall hardware that I control....
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
At home, I have a firewall/proxy pass-through (a stealthy honey pot) for all my bits and bytes and scan for criminal and malicious data/bots/.... It is all just for fun, and trusting any Web-Services Providers (WSP) Google...Alibaba, or Internet Access Providers (IAP) ComCast xFinity, Verison FiOS ... is as foolish as trusting any government.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?