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Comcast Converting 50,000 Houston Home Routers Into Public WiFi Hotspots

Posted by Soulskill on from the just-what-you-never-wanted dept.

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.

12 of 474 comments (clear)

  1. Liability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Liability by jythie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Comcast is a major cable company, they do not 'break' the law, they write it.

    2. Re:Liability by un1nsp1red · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not *free* wi-fi. You still have to have a Comcast account to connect to any one of them.

    3. Re:Liability by freeze128 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here are some facts:

      - Public wireless users will be using a different IP address from the LAN/internal wireless users.
      - In order to use the "Public" wireless hotspot, you will need to already have a Comcast username and password. It's not OPEN wifi, but open to other Comcast subscribers.
      - "Public" wifi bandwidth will not affect the bandwidth of the home router (so says Comcast).

    4. Re:Liability by wbr1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Opting out should never be considered a reasonable mechanism for not being in a subscription group unless you have first opted in.

      Why are you poking me?????

      Because! You are in my new hourly poke subscription! It is free and fun! If you prefer you can opt-out by simply filling out this paperwork.

      Oh... we are sorry to see you go. But rejoice! By opting out of the pok of the hour group you have been automatically subscribed to the 15 minute nipple pinch! (opt out instructions below.)

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    5. Re:Liability by nairnr · · Score: 5, Informative

      As long as you still get the speed you are paying for why should you care if someone else is using your wifi anymore than you care if your neighbor is also a comcast subscriber.

      Because someone might attach to your Wi-fi and share something in a manner that infringes copyright. Then, the MPAA/RIAA will come after you.

      Note, I completely agree that targeting people based on IP address is idiotic, but you would be the person who would either need to spend the time/money to fight this lawsuit or would need to settle with them (likely agreeing that you did the crime) to make it go away.

      On the upside, it could add more dents into the "this IP address proves it was that person" claims of the MPAA/RIAA, but who would want to volunteer for this expense? Or, more accurately, who would want Comcast to volunteer them for this expense unless they go through technological measures to opt out?

      You obviously didn't read the article. They are using the wifi and completely segregating traffic. It appears with a distiinct SSID and on a different IP. The capacity is on a different channel, so gain the host user isn't affected.

  2. Credential phising by psergiu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  3. Liability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My guess is that you'll be compensated by having access to a city-wide wifi hotspot.

  4. Re:Who owns them? by Burdell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is my understanding that this will be done only on Comcast-owned equipment, and using a separate logical connection (like a VLAN) from the local subscriber data. This won't affect any subscriber data cap one way or the other. If a subscriber cancels, they probably unplug the Comcast equipment (so the wifi goes down) because they are supposed to return it to Comcast (or get billed).

  5. Re:Monthly quota? by backbyter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  6. You gotta love their style... by Thruen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:the ultimate mesh network by Njovich · · Score: 5, Informative

    We have this stuff here in Netherlands at one of the biggest providers (Ziggo). It seemed great to me at first, but turned out pretty much useless.

    The problem is, these are home routers inside homes, this means they are low powered, not at ideal locations (not many homes in the mall, highway, train, etc), and also inside usually thick walls that stop a lot of the signal. It's just a frustrating experience, with your phone often falling in and out of connection and such. The 4G network gives a much better experience.