Comcast Sued For Turning Home Wi-Fi Routers Into Public Hotspots

HughPickens.com writes: Benny Evangelista reports at the San Francisco Chronicle that a class-action suit has been filed in District Court in San Francisco on behalf of Toyer Grear and daughter Joycelyn Harris, claiming that Comcast is "exploiting them for profit" by using their home router as part of a nationwide network of public hotspots. Comcast is trying to compete with major cell phone carriers by creating a public Xfinity WiFi Hotspot network in 19 of the country's largest cities by activating a second high-speed Internet channel broadcast from newer-model wireless gateway modems that residential customers lease from the company.

Although Comcast has said its subscribers have the right to disable the secondary signal, the suit claims the company turns the service on without permission. It also places "the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers" and quotes a test conducted by Philadelphia networking technology company Speedify that concluded the secondary Internet channel will eventually push "tens of millions of dollars per month of the electricity bills needed to run their nationwide public Wi-Fi network onto consumers." The suit also says "the data and information on a Comcast customer's network is at greater risk" because the hotspot network "allows strangers to connect to the Internet through the same wireless router used by Comcast customers."

Comments

Make it free

[Anonymous Coward]

subject sais enough

Re: Make it free

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were smarter/more evil they would have timed it with a rate hike, $20 higher monthly bill or $10 more and you enable hotspot,

Re: Make it free

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, though I'd word it differently. $20 rate hike, but then a $10 credit for anyone who chooses to turn on the public hotspot, to compensate for the increased electricity usage.

Re: Make it free

[Anonymous Coward]

But that would've meant lower profits. They will give the "discount" only if their customers complain about the freeloading and won't allow it.

Comcast Business Class

[mrr]

When I signed up for Comcast Business Class recently, they told me I had to use their modem+wireless router combo.

I managed to put their modem in bridge mode (i.e. let me use my own router) and "disable" the wireless functionality so I can use my own access points, but I can't seem to find any way to disable the damn public network.

I've confirmed that the public network uses a different public IP (clients connected to it get a private IP), but I'd still like to be able to disable it.

Bastards.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Call their business tech support and ask them to disable the public wifi, the tier 1 support can't, but tier 2 can

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had only two bullets and was locked in a room with Comcast, Hitler, and Osama Bin Laden... I'd shoot Comcast twice.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Mr. Sketch]

If I had only two bullets and was locked in a room with Comcast, Hitler, and Osama Bin Laden... I'd shoot Comcast twice.

Well, yeah, because the other two are already dead.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the other two are already dead... I'd probably shoot myself due to the smell and let Comcast slowly wither away and die as it tries to eat my corpse to stay alive. Assuming there's no key to the bullet-proof door.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[ourlovecanlastforeve]

Former comcast employee and Business Class customer here. They tell you that you have to use their modem so they can market VOIP phone service to you once it's installed. You can use any modem you want as long as it supports DOCSIS3. Go buy any DOCSIS3 modem and plug it in, then call them and tell them you want a modem swap.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[fahrbot-bot]

but I can't seem to find any way to disable the damn public network.

Two words: Faraday cage.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[postbigbang]

The electricity still gets used, and the resident still foots the bill. Best to find a DOCSIS 3X modem that's compatible, and use THAT. Then update the modem's firmware, fast. Then use the weirdest longest WPA2 string possible to encrypt it. Then: stay paranoid.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Waste of time, it's a corporate entity.

What you do is shoot the lock on the door, then find a paper shredder.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Your problem solved

http://www.amazon.com/Behrens-...

I used to use something like this for testing when I didnt want to be bothered to unplug or reconfigure things.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[nwf]

Jumper the center conductor of the antenna to the screw part, shorting it. Shouldn't have much range at that point and may burn out the radio.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[gwstuff]

Nice! Now you're stuck in a room with Osama and Hitler pissed off at you because their cable TV doesn't work.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you want or need static IPs or permission to run servers.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[mark-t]

The modem uses a certain amount of power, regardless if wifi is enabled or not. But the wifi does draw some additional power, and this can be computed.

But for what it's worth, on a modern wireless router, if the wifi were being used 24 hours a day, the annual bill for just its usage would run at somewhere around six bucks per year.

So to keep things fair, I would think,that comcast subscribers who have their modems used in this way should probably receive a monthly rebate on their bill of 50 cents, since that wifi is being used for comcast's purposes.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd wait and watch Hitler and Osama Bin Laden be tortured by Comcast customer support. One them will commit suicide by the end of the day.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

if you think the extra electricity for running a radio under 1 watt is at issue, you are very silly.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[DigiShaman]

You should be able to disable it. WiFi saturation is bad enough. What's worse is that it's all blowing out your office and/or residence! So even if they're not tying up your internet bandwidth, most certainly local WiFi bandwidth is use. Very true if some asshole has BitTorrent running 24/7 as there will be constant WiFi chatter.

Oh, don't worry, the 5Ghz spectrum is next to get saturated once the IC chips become so cheap that dual-band is ubiquitous in all newer cheap devices. Give it a few more years.

Who ever builds WiFi antenna condoms (little wire mesh faraday cages) will become a bazillionar! Fuck Comcast, I'll use my own firewall thank-you-very-much.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[davester666]

And you don't want to pollute potential sources of food with lead.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[epyT-R]

short the antenna wire to ground.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[epyT-R]

You will not notice 500mw of draw on your monthly bill. You lose more in the conversion losses of the power supply.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you think the entire power budget for a wifi ap is the radio, you're pretty silly. They run slightly warm - more than 1W above the radio power. 8W is about median.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe take a screw driver and wire cutters to the antenna. Would make the range a few feet at best.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

"let Comcast slowly wither away and die as it tries to eat my corpse to stay alive"

So, exactly what they're trying to do by forcing public Wifi on everyone...

Re:Comcast Business Class

[jd659]

I've confirmed that the public network uses a different public IP (clients connected to it get a private IP), but I'd still like to be able to disable it.

Very interesting that it runs public WiFi even in bridge mode. So the modem must obtain two IPs from Comcast. I'd disconnect the internal antennas at this point. I cannot fathom running provided equipment of which I don't have control for my private networking. Only bridge mode and my own router/access point.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Cramer]

(http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_03) Average cost per kWhr is 12.41 cents. Even if the radio adds 1W (it doesn't) to the operation, that comes to (1W * 24hr/day * 365.25days/year / 1000W/kW * $.124/kW) $1.0878606. PER. YEAR.

(BTW, clicking the "off" box doesn't physically power off the radio chip(s). It'll cease transmitting, but the chips are still powered.)

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn djinns. No matter what you wish for they always find some way to make you regret your wish.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[cecst]

If the issue is unwanted public *wireless* access, would the following work (note: I am not familiar with this modem)? Wrap the entire box inside aluminum foil to create a Faraday cage. Optionally remove the antennas first. This works great with cell phones. Try wrapping yours up and then call it. Nothing happens until you unwrap enough to expose the phone's antenna. Of course, wIth the modem, there are wires exiting that might disrupt the cage effect. Dunno whether that would prevent this method from working well enough to be useful.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

The radio is probably not 100% efficient, but still even if it was a few watts the actual dollar cost in electricity probably doesn't justify buying your own cable modem. Of course, you may just wnat one that you control and trust, to some extent. That could easily justify it. Still, the simplest farady cage type solution might just be to purchase the smallest roll of aluminum screen wire you fan find and just wrap it around it, making many connections to make a complete, yet pourous shell, so heat isn't an issue. Grounding is likely helpful as well. The WIFI ground would be my first choice, but the coax ground may work as well.You don't care too much about the exact shape of the cage, but I'd avoid needless sharp corners.

Alternatively, if the attenna is external, you can always unhook it. That won't completely eliminate the signal, but it will cut the range drastically. You could also directly short across the antenna terminal with a small piece of wire. A zip tie may help there. Of course that may even raise your electric bill, assuming it doesn't damage the internal amplifier, which might be a useful side effect. Still, when shorting anything, there can be surprise side effects. Because of this, any modifications are at your own risk. On a side note, I wonder if you could deliberately damage the wifi part of a product while not frying everything else by a very brief trip inside a microwave oven. (Similar frequencies.) Still, I think I'd leave anything that daring/dangerous to the Mythbusters....

Re:Comcast Business Class

[mysidia]

I can think of a few ways of disabling it.... most of them involve the use of a screwdriver and a pair of snips, or placing the modem/router in a shielded metal box.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[mysidia]

I would think,that comcast subscribers who have their modems used in this way should probably receive a monthly rebate on their bill of 50 cents

Nice try.... the customer should also have fair compensation for some other things of value that are being used by Comcast to generate these extra revenue for Comcast.

Mainly, the use of the customer's real-estate which the customer pays for and pays taxes on, for a purpose not related to service delivery to the customer, and in a manner which generates noise into their local RF environment on frequencies the customer may wish to use.

Next; bandwidth from the customer's service drop, which may affect their speeds if public users have high usage. Finally, the concern about additional potential risks for customer's network and service stability.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[thogard]

Most antennas turned for 2.4 Ghz are shorts to a ground plane.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[mysidia]

why would there still be an additional public IP on the modem?

Just because your service is being bridged, doesn't necessarily mean that the modem isn't acting as a router for other services.

It can also be assigned an additional public IP outside the forwarding plane for your service for management purposes.

Plenty of reasons for a device made to act as a bridge to still have an IP. Also, seeing as its DOCSIS, the additional IP it has if any can be completely discrete and not discoverable by the subscriber of the bridged service

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

And (last I knew) they refuse to provide the RIP password that is used so that you could run your own router.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[smallfries]

So you would let Ubisoft get away with it? Think of the gun more as a tool and use it get out of the room first...

Re:Comcast Business Class

[mrr]

Funny thing - I have their VOIP, and it has it's own separate box that needs its very own coax connection. wtf is with that?

Re:Comcast Business Class

[mark-t]

Considering the fact that one is probably generally not just using a modem as a hotspot for comcast, but is actually getting some personal use out of it, and considering that, for example, to declare even a *portion* of your rent or mortgage as a business expense in a home business you have to actually almost *exclusively* dedicate some square footage of your home, such as a den or what have you, to that business, and not use it for any personal purposes (cheaters on this front get dinged a lot if they are unfortunate enough to get audited, and the likelihood of a home business owner being audited in any given year is not insignificant), so I'd suggest that the fact that the modem might be taking up some real estate in one's home that they pay tax on is not grounds for compensation to that effect, since they are getting use out of the modem that has nothing to do with what may be benefiting comcast.

Even if you wanted to argue that the customers deserve more compensation than 50cents per month because of the real estate used by the modem, considering they can easily take up less than a tenth of a square foot, plugging that into the average square-foot rate for real estate in the area where the customer lives would probably only amount to perhaps a only a few additional pennies per month. If you factor in the notion that it would not be reasonable to compensate them for 100% of that, becuase the customer is getting some use out of the modem as well, it probably doesn't even work out to a whole penny.

As for bandwidth, if the public wifi is not on the same hotspot that the customer is expected to use, then the customer has the full wifi bandwidth, and anyone on the router's public wifi hotspot will not generally impact any upstream wired connectivity. And hey, it's comcast's network... they have a right to put whatever equipment they want on their own network. The modem that they you lease from them to use their network belongs to *THEM*... the fact that it may be in your home does not make it your property.

As for the impacts on the customer's network... it's not on the customer's network. It would be on comcast's network, unless the customer is expected to use the same hotspot that the router is supposed to have open to the public, which is probably not going to be the case.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe your modem not voip?

Re: Comcast Business Class

[firesyde424]

The few watt power bill might not justify buying your own modem, but the $8 per month "leasing" fee for using their modem does. Most modems will pay themselves off at that rate in less than a year,two years if you get an expensive one.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

At these frequencies, the antenna wire IS a short to ground.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming this works the same as the BT hotspots in the UK you need to phone them up centrally to turn it off, there's no option to do so on the router. The reason is that opting into the system gives you permission to use the hotspots for free. They therefore need to centrally track whether you're on it or not, and prevent you abusing it by having it turned on on your account but having disabled it locally.

I've confirmed that the public network uses a different public IP (clients connected to it get a private IP), but I'd still like to be able to disable it.

Correct, so you're not liable. However it does still eat into the finite bandwidth over your connection and if there's a flaw in the router potentially allows them to hop across networks.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[stud9920]

If you're not using their wireless, just put the router in a metal box.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[spiritplumber]

I did this, I still got charges $8 a month for renting their modem for 4 months... getting them to see the problem required initiating a video chat with the operator and physically showing them that the modem wasn't one of theirs. Took another month to get reimbursed.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Filing a suit because you want the class action proceeds wont fly.

You need a "reason" the courts recognize. Wasting 1 watt of electricity seems like it would work, so that is what they did.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[drinkypoo]

(BTW, clicking the "off" box doesn't physically power off the radio chip(s). It'll cease transmitting, but the chips are still powered.)

It may well physically power off the parts of the chips needed for radio communications, however, when the interface is disabled.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[indeterminator]

I would find that level of sophistication very unlikely, your average ISP's branded end-user box is put together from the cheapest pieces of shit they've been able to find.

And they have no reason to care about the power consumption of end-user equipment, they're not paying for that power.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[drinkypoo]

I would find that level of sophistication very unlikely, your average ISP's branded end-user box is put together from the cheapest pieces of shit they've been able to find.

That's why it's likely to be true. If Comcast had every part designed for them, low power consumption wouldn't even be on the map. But since it's built with standard-spec parts, only turning on the radio when it's actually in use is probably a driver feature.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Enclose the router in wireless-blocking materials (DIY Faraday cage for 2.4 and 5Ghz).
Run CAT-6 to your own devices placed outside of the cage.
Problem solved.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[internerdj]

Just put on Comcast's hat, say thank you for calling Comcast support, and beat them with the pistol; it will be the best Comcast service call they have ever made.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Comcast. Their cable TV never worked anyway.
You'd just make two very unpopular friends as even Osama and Hitler can't comprehend the levels of evil demonstrated by Comcast.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to look up the meaning of the word "were."

Re:Comcast Business Class

[jythie]

I usually physically disconnect the antenna, but that only works on some boxes.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but who is paying for the power?

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

To say nothing about the contract you signed with Comcast (which has probably changed in their favor). We as customers agree to pay the assorted fees for renting a modem, connection to their network, and assorted taxes.

We did not agree to pay for the support of their public network by paying the extra few cents per month in electricity bills. We also did not agree to them setting up shop in our homes. The fact that we have to "opt-out" of a potential back-door into our home network is utterly stupid. Would you accept your phone provider enabling the mobile hotspot on your phone and force you to take positive action with them to opt-out of it?

Re:Comcast Business Class

[azcoyote]

I'm just a home user with Comcast but I use my own DOCSIS 2.0 modem (the max Comcast speed in my small city is so slow that it hardly makes a difference). The catch is that every four months or so Comcast seems to do a review of my account and decide that my modem belongs to them. So they start billing me a rental fee for me own modem, and then I have to call them and yell at them. This resets the clock, but in another four months or so it'll happen again, and again, and again.

The trick with dealing with Comcast, in my experience, is that you should always follow the prompts for cancelling your service. The only people who can actually help you or give you discounts or anything are the guys who have to talk you out of ditching Comcast. When my contract runs out and they start to bill me more, I usually just have to threaten to switch to AT&T, and they will offer me some kind of deal.

Ironically, the reason I use Comcast is because there's no options here other than Comcast and AT&T, and despite their repeated attempts to lay claim to my modem and their general sleaziness, Comcast seems to be the *less evil* option for me. AT&T had me on a bimonthly schedule of adding false charges to my bill, and a daily schedule of outages and crappy service. It's sad when one of the most evil companies in America seems to be the lesser of two evils.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

After Comcast recently pushed the monthly fee for Cable Modems up to $10, I purchased my own and returned their unit back to them.

I would assume Business Class would be no different since the router is going to sit behind the cable modem so you should be able to use your own routing solution I would think. Though your support would end at the cable modem.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

It took a while, talked to every one I could contact at Comcast and even logged into the modem as admin, but I finally figured out how to turn off the public Wi-Fi; I switched to AT&T.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

$10

As of a month or so ago the price increased to $10 / month for the privilege of leasing their cable modem. Go buy one.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[nabsltd]

What makes you think that having Comcast around will in any way increase the chance that the cable TV will work?

Re:Comcast Business Class

[mark-t]

As I said, they could, at least in theory, reimburse customers for the extra electricity that the modem uses so it would cost the consumer nothing.

Enabling the mobile hotspot on my cell phone is a different story, since the cell phone is battery powered, and the hotspot will drain the battery more quickly than normal. Although this will not increase my monthly costs by any significant amount, it *does* have a significant impact on the convenience of the cell phone, which will need to be recharged more frequently, or even worse, may end up running out of power when it otherwise would not have, and during a time when I was actually requiring use of it. For something that's plugged into the wall 24/7, that is not an issue. The only factor that costs the customer anything at all that they weren't already paying for and personally getting use out of is the electricity to power the public hotspot.

Comcast does not currently reimburse their customers for the electricity usage that the hotspot incurs, but even if they did, the amount would not be very much, and probably wouldn't feel remotely justified by the amount that people are complaining about it.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[mysidia]

considering they can easily take up less than a tenth of a square foot, plugging that into the average square-foot rate for real estate in the area where the customer lives would probably only amount to perhaps a only a few additional pennies per month.

You are referencing wrong rates; you are referencing residential real-estate rates, but Comcast is using the real-estate for a commercial purpose, and when you rent out a small bit of real-estate for a commercial purpose, the expected rates are higher than personal usage. Lookup colocation rates for 1U of rackspace in low-tier data centers. Comcast is colocating a modem, which is comparable to colocating a 1U router. Obviously, you don't expect them to pay for delivering a service to you, but if they are using their colocation to generate revenue by taking advantage of the prime location of your property to deliver revenue-generating services outside your customer relationship, then you are entitled to a share of the extra revenue that placement on your property is used to generate independent of their usage to deliver your service.

For example, to declare even a *portion* of your rent or mortgage as a business expense in a home business you have to actually almost *exclusively* dedicate some square footage of your home, such as a den or what have you, to that business, and not use it for any personal purposes

This is only true if you are both the owner of the home and the owner of the business. And it is nothing more than a rule designed to prevent self-dealing on your taxes where you claim some rent to be a business expense without actually sacrificing anything to the business. The IRS rules also have some differences from the actual law, and you could challenge them.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[PostPhil]

If I had only two bullets and was locked in a room with Comcast, ZOMBIE Hitler, and ZOMBIE Osama Bin Laden... I'd shoot Comcast twice.

FTFY

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Comcrap public WiFi is on 1 antenna and your house WiFi is on the other antenna...get the idea?

If both WiFi services are on both antennas, you are SOL.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

This idea sounds a lot safer than: (1) shorting the connector to ground and overheating the chips; (2) wrapping the device in foil or whatever, which traps the heat generated by the device causing it to overheat; (3) opening the device and snipping out stuff.

Even the metal bucket idea, found in another post, once grounded, would focus the WiFi signals "straight up" and make them very weak on the lobes.

All this assumes you don't need the WiFi for personal use.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[houstonbofh]

If you're not using their wireless, just put the router in a metal box.

Still uses power, and not an insignificant ammount.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[RackinFrackin]

There used to be a troll named Subjunctive Sam. I miss him.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you wanted to argue that the customers deserve more compensation than 50cents per month because of the real estate used by the modem, considering they can easily take up less than a tenth of a square foot, plugging that into the average square-foot rate for real estate in the area where the customer lives would probably only amount to perhaps a only a few additional pennies per month. If you factor in the notion that it would not be reasonable to compensate them for 100% of that, becuase the customer is getting some use out of the modem as well, it probably doesn't even work out to a whole penny.

That's not how it works...they aren't paying the "bulk rate", they are paying the "we really want some space right here rate". See various examples, including: Safety deposit boxes, PO boxes, cell phone tower land leases, etc.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

If you're not using their wireless, just put the router in a metal box.

Then Comcast will charge you a Faraday Cage container upgrade. They'll say you need to have a field assistant do the install, they'll come out sometime between 1 and 11. That being months, as in sometime between 1 for January, and 11 for November. Then a $9.99 rental fee per month. Then you get calls from their friendly techs to have you upgrade to Faraday Cage Turbo(TM) for $5 a month more, or Faraday Cage Blast (TM) for just $8 a month more!!

Jokes aside, it does suck that Comcast is forcing this on everybody. It's good to be the king, err, monopoly.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[houstonbofh]

The only people who can actually help you or give you discounts or anything are the guys who have to talk you out of ditching Comcast.

There is another option. You know that part of the call where they say "This call may be recorded to insure quality." That is not just a disclaimer, but it is also permission. Start your conversation with "I am taking advantage of your offer to record the call for quality and I am recording this call." They actually have a specific policy for this and it is very nice. :) It is essentially, "Make us look good if we are being recorded."

Re: Comcast Business Class

[houstonbofh]

Power for the modem, and power for the AC to dissapate the heat.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[605dave]

Yeah, but maybe they're not dead enough.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd imagine they'll announce a change in billing. Crank prices up by $5/month, then offer a $5 monthly "discount" off of their "regular prices" if you leave the public wifi hotspot enabled. If you disable it, you lose the "rebate"!

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast does not currently reimburse their customers for the electricity usage that the hotspot incurs, but even if they did, the amount would not be very much, and probably wouldn't feel remotely justified by the amount that people are complaining about it.

Comcast has about 30mil subscribers. The electrical increase is about $20/year. About $600mil per year in additional electrical costs to the USA as a whole.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[IcyWolfy]

For every box, there's a minimum of 3 IP addresses.
Customer Management IP (Internal IPv6 or v4 depending on location)
Customer Modem Service IP (The external internet)
VoIP IP Management (Intetrnal address)

And then the public WiFi hot-spot has another.

Most I've seen on the technician's roll out tool was 6 IPs assigned to my residential account.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[pnutjam]

at least around here, that's flipped. AT&T has made huge strides in customer service.

If only they would have better upstream.

If anyone from AT&T is reading this, we want faster upstream speeds!

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Grounded cage to hold the wireless router. So what do I care if the effective range of the wireless router is 6 inches?

Re:Comcast Business Class

[ComputerGeek01]

Even if you wanted to argue that the customers deserve more compensation than 50cents per month because of the real estate used by the modem, considering they can easily take up less than a tenth of a square foot, plugging that into the average square-foot rate for real estate in the area where the customer lives would probably only amount to perhaps a only a few additional pennies per month. If you factor in the notion that it would not be reasonable to compensate them for 100% of that, becuase the customer is getting some use out of the modem as well, it probably doesn't even work out to a whole penny.

Wow, it's a good thing that absolutely none of what you mentioned any where in your post has any impact what so ever on what is in effect a real estate agreement between two private entities. Unless Comcast suddenly qualifies for some kind of federal housing allowance that I want to allow them to use, the average square-foot rate for real estate does not come into play any where at any time. If I have no interest in charging a rate that is "competitive" for use of my property then I don't have to, if they do not agree with my rates then they are free to go somewhere else. The law is quite simple in this case, it's "pay up or fuck off" in other words capitalism at its finest.

This isn't about how insignificant the price of electricity might be, or what a fair rate to reimburse customers is or any of that crap. This is the fact that their company wants the ability to use property I own to make a profit. The physical location that I own has a value to them and they have to pay the rate that I charge (which by the way would be a hell of a lot more then 50 cents a month) because without my cooperation they would not be able to offer coverage for this service in the immediate area. Give it a minute, some idiot right now hasn't read to the end of this sentence and is thinking "Well it would be unreasonable for Comcast to negotiate private contracts with each of it's customers blah blah blah...". My preemptive response to this oblivious person is simple, I don't give a damn. I simply don't care about what is or isn't reasonable to expect or economical for Comcast to do, their convenience is absolutely none of my concern. My concern is the use of property I own to make a profit. Can you see the flaw in your retarded excuse of an argument yet?

Re: Comcast Business Class

[Jane Q. Public]

Jokes aside, it does suck that Comcast is forcing this on everybody. It's good to be the king, err, monopoly.

I insist on using my own cable adapter (a Motorola Docsis 3). Actually insisting that customers use Comcast's own cable adapter/router is probably illegal. That's what got Ma Bell broken up.

I run my own public WiFi hotspot, as a "guest" network. Someone could say that's the same thing, but it's not: I decide when to turn it on or off, and I can block particular people from using it if I want. Yes, I supply the electricity but I do that voluntarily.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[houstonbofh]

And then forget your rebate anyway, like they "forget" that you own your DOCSIS modem and change for rental...

Re:Comcast Business Class

[mark-t]

... which, if Comcast were reimbursing their customers for, is an expense that Comcast would be paying for... and could probably easily afford to do so from their profits.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

I have AT&T, or now Frontier, myself... but I go on my router and do a site survey and lo and behold 2 out of 5 routers I can see in my neighborhood (mostly 1ac+ lots, so mostly pretty crappy reception) are "xfinitywifi" and wide open.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[drkoemans]

They will also only correct account issues for the last 6 billing periods. If you've been paying for a year, they only will credit you for the last 6 months.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wrap it in aluminum foil.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[klossner]

I put the new modem into bridge mode, disabled wireless, and now there's no sign of any wireless activity from their box (no advertised SSID). This is good because my own router/WAP sits a few inches away.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[klossner]

Comcast's new standard modems have internal antennae.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

You could still hook up your own wifi access point, I do this anyway so I ca get faster LAN speeds and greater range.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[leslie.satenstein]

When I signed up for Comcast Business Class recently, they told me I had to use their modem+wireless router combo.

I managed to put their modem in bridge mode (i.e. let me use my own router) and "disable" the wireless functionality so I can use my own access points, but I can't seem to find any way to disable the damn public network.

I've confirmed that the public network uses a different public IP (clients connected to it get a private IP), but I'd still like to be able to disable it.

Bastards.

There is a simple solution. Get a very large soup pot that inverted, can cover the comcast equipment. Cover the equipment with the pot, (do not to put the equipment into the pot). It may need some free air, so let it just get air from the bottom by leaving the pot about 1/4 inch (1.5cm) wedged open at the bottom. Really want to kill their signal, Put a bigger pot over the first one.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

LMAO

Re: Comcast Business Class

[Shirley Marquez]

Comcast Business Class is theoretically a business to business service, not a consumer service. (Some non-business customers sign up for it anyway so they can get static IPs and permission to run servers.) Some consumer protections don't apply to B2B services, so the requirement to use a Comcast-provided modem is probably legal. They do allow you to use your own modem for their residential service.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[JKast]

The other two are already dead....

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Bandwidth??? You think bandwidth won't be affected? I don't think you understand how this works. Yes, if there are separate WiFi hotspots throughput between devices within any 1 hotspot would be fine but all of the hotspots are going through the same cable modem, which means throughput through that modem will be affected if they are all trying to get to the internet. How many home customers actually are trying to communicate with other devices within the same hotspot? Not many, usually it's mom surfing on her tablet, dad hitting the internet for movies on his Amazon Fire, the kids gaming with their Play Station or surfing with their phones. Occasionally someone will need to print something via their WiFi enabled printer which is typically the only time an internal device is accessed.

So, as you can see throughput IS a BIG issue.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Double tap!

Re:Comcast Business Class

[OutOnARock]

If I had only two bullets and was locked in a room with Comcast, Hitler, and Osama Bin Laden... I'd shoot Comcast twice.

Well, yeah, because the other two are already dead.

Geez.....its the level of evil, not that they are alive.....

If I only had two bullets and was locked in a room with Comcast, Dick Cheney, and Kim Jong Un, I'd shoot Comcast twice....

Better or blurry?

Re:Comcast Business Class

[cwsumner]

Most antennas turned for 2.4 Ghz are shorts to a ground plane.

For a DC OHM meter, but not for the RF signal.

By the way, you can probably get a "dummy load" for that cable connector and frequency band , on the web.
Or make one yourself, if you can find a 50 ohm bulk carbon (old style) resistor.

Re: Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

And you need to reply to someone who said "were". Otherwise, stfu.

Re:Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

You can turn it off yourself. The pages on the router to control those things are all still there, you just have to put them in manually. They are simply commented out on the menu, just view source and scroll down till you find them, didn't take long to find on mine.

As for you being required to use their devices, they are lying to you.

use your own cable modem

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Comcast and I use my own cable modem that does not have wireless features specifically because of this. Problem solved. It took them two months before I finally got them to take the "modem rental fee" off my bill and the "late fees" for not paying the "modem rental fee" previously. I don't have any other broadband ISP options.

Re:use your own cable modem

[Anonymous Coward]

heh try that in germany. We have telcos which require customers to use their routers, and our FCC equivalent just sits and does nothing. In fact, it even doesn't listen to commands from the government (ok its independent, but still). Now gvt wants to pass a law that explicitly allows to use own routers.

Re:use your own cable modem

[drooling-dog]

I did that a few weeks ago, after being bugged to upgrade from my old DOCSIS2 modem. I wasn't about to pay $8/mo. for $60 modem (and I wanted control over the router), so I bought my own, a Motorola SB6121 listed as compatible on their website. I spent an entire evening on the phone with three different reps, none of whom could activate it (despite a lot of time spent trying) because of some problem with the "provisioning department". Finally, I was told I'd have to physically take the modem to a customer service center. I did that the next morning, took a number, and patiently waited behind about 40 people waiting for 3 service reps. About an hour later it was my turn, and the rep just scanned the box with a barcode reader and I was done.

I don't know if my experience was typical, but it didn't seem that they were going out of their way to make the process easy.

Re:use your own cable modem

[silas_moeckel]

That is nothing try getting a cable card out of them.

Re:use your own cable modem

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used cable cards with Comcast, Charter and MidContinent and none have made it even a little bit of a problem.

Re:use your own cable modem

[Anonymous Coward]

I have. A couple of times actually. I walked into the local office, asked for a cable card, did the various paperwork dance, walked out. If you ignore the time in queue (which varies from a few minutes to an hour, depending on the time of day (tip, Saturday lines are long)), it was probably done in 5-10 minutes of "face" time. It all depends on your particular franchise CSR. Where I am, cablecards may not be a common request, but neither are they unusual, so the CSRs knows what to do.

Re:use your own cable modem

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if my experience was typical, but it didn't seem that they were going out of their way to make the process easy.

That sounds unusual. Where I am, I can activate a new cable modem online (just connect it up, wait for it to provision itself and (if needed) upgrade its firmware (i.e wait for the online led to stop blinking), attach a computer, open a browser and access a web page, and you should be redirected to the activation page). I have activated at least four cable modems that way. I never talked with a person for any of them (which certainly made me happier).

Re:use your own cable modem

[Anonymous Coward]

That is nothing try getting a cable card out of them.

Depends on the market, if anything, Comcast is a lot better about cablecards many some other carriers (e.g. RCN). I got Comcast to "rent" me two cablecards for one TiVo, just took a phone call and 15 minutes with a technician on-site to associate them with the device. I pay a buck a month for the cablecards, but get most of that back as a credit because I don't have a traditional cablebox.

Then I re-assigned one of the cards to another device, this required a second phone call for re-activation; the trick is to search the DSLreports forum to find the right phone number to call so you bypass their Level-1 technical support queue.

This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[Hey_Jude_Jesus]

Comcast requires all subscribers to use binding arbitration for all legal disputes about their services. The customer can also save money and stop the use of the Comcast modem by buying her own modem for $30-$80.

Re:This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can, but that won't stop them from pestering you with phone calls talking about how you won't have the full access to their services unless you change your modem post haste

Re:This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[ShaunC]

You can opt out of the binding arbitration clause, not that they advertise this fact. I believe you're "supposed" to complete the form within 30 days of commencement of service, but I don't know whether or not that requirement itself is legally binding.

Re:This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[Holistic Missile]

It's difficult to do with telemarketers, but try being nice to the person who calls you the third or fourth time. Tell them that you have repeatedly said you are not interested, and ask to be added to their internal Do Not Call list. AT&T has one as well. A couple of days later, you will get a robocall to confirm your addition to the DNC list. That is the last call you will get, at least for a while. I haven't gotten a call from either of them in months, but I'm guessing that it times out after a year or so.

Re: This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[AvitarX]

I wish xm was that nice. I politely asked three times before I started getting belligerent.

After about the fifth time (8th call) when I asked them if they had heard of the Internet yet, and why they thought I'd pay for what I already paid for (Internet radio and podcast donations) they stopped.

It was so strange to talk to them, asking if oh enjoyed their radio stations.

I never had even listened, I highly doubt they match my tastes for a particular moment as well as Pandora, Spotify, or Google, and suspect that they are at best with the same variety per station as Pandora.

Re:This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[ShanghaiBill]

You can, but that won't stop them from pestering you with phone calls

I don't have that problem. Here is the solution.

Re:This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[mysidia]

Do you have a solution that doesn't require caller ID service?

ATT wants an arm and a leg to have caller ID svc.

Re:This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[Harlequin80]

I'm sorry what?!?!? You get charged for caller id?????

Isn't called ID just stamped on the call by default? Well I know the data is there by default, so why the fuck are you having to pay for something that they would actually have to be actively stripping?!?!?

Re:This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can opt out of the binding arbitration clause, not that they advertise this fact. I believe you're "supposed" to complete the form within 30 days of commencement of service, but I don't know whether or not that requirement itself is legally binding.

Binding arbitration clauses don't hold up in court. No contract is allowed to revoke your rights.

Re:This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[NormalVisual]

Binding arbitration clauses don't hold up in court.

The Supreme Court begs to differ.

Re:This lawsuit will be dismissed.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is AT&T. The same people that used to charge you for "touch tone" service. For all I know they might still charge for "touch tone".

The "deathstar" people will charge you for whatever they can get away with.....

I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[supersat]

... but their Xfinity Wifi Hotspot program, if implemented correctly, shouldn't cause customers any real harm.

What I believe happens is that your modem gets virtualized into two modems/routers. Cable Internet is already based on shared broadcast signals, so in terms of bandwidth it should be identical to adding a second, mostly inactive cable modem somewhere in your neighborhood. Since the 2nd modem is virtualized, it should not affect your transfer rates or bandwidth quotas.

This second modem is connected to a second, virtual router, with its own SSID. Unless there's a vulnerability in the router (which is possible), users of the Xfinity Wifi Hotspot should not be able to access your network, use your IP address, etc.

Available bandwidth could conceivably be reduced, due to more packets in the air, but WiFi is already unregulated and subject to additional interference. Increased load on the modem/router could theoretically reduce your bandwidth as well, although probably not by any noticeable amount.

The best claim is based on increased electricity usage. However, the additional energy needed is probably negligible. Here is a link to a blog post about the increased electricity costs, where they conclude it's about $8 per year in the mid-Atlantic area -- if it's being used. Comcast could give everyone a $1/mo credit for enabling the Xfinity WiFi Hotspot, completely eliminating the issue.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Khyber]

"a blog post about the increased electricity costs, where they conclude it's about $8 per year in the mid-Atlantic area -- if it's being used."

And this suit is being filed in CALIFORNIA, where the price of power is much higher.

Next off. That modem isn't secure. Man can make it, man can and will break it. Period. You guys thought the latest TLS was the bees knees against POODLE and BEAST and BAM someone just said "We can act like it never fucking existed" in an article on this site, not even two days ago.

"Comcast could give everyone a $1/mo credit for enabling the Xfinity WiFi Hotspot, completely eliminating the issue."

And make up for it with bullshit fees, tariffs, taxes, and still never apply the credit.

Re: I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were smarter/more evil they would have configured the routers to run more diagnostic cycles or something causing higher power usage for non-public sharing routers.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Joe_Dragon]

see how someone got jail time for useing about $0.04 of power to change there car. Comcast needs to do some hard time. They can start at 26 and california

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/...

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[m00sh]

... but their Xfinity Wifi Hotspot program, if implemented correctly, shouldn't cause customers any real harm.

What I believe happens is that your modem gets virtualized into two modems/routers. Cable Internet is already based on shared broadcast signals, so in terms of bandwidth it should be identical to adding a second, mostly inactive cable modem somewhere in your neighborhood. Since the 2nd modem is virtualized, it should not affect your transfer rates or bandwidth quotas.

This second modem is connected to a second, virtual router, with its own SSID. Unless there's a vulnerability in the router (which is possible), users of the Xfinity Wifi Hotspot should not be able to access your network, use your IP address, etc.

Available bandwidth could conceivably be reduced, due to more packets in the air, but WiFi is already unregulated and subject to additional interference. Increased load on the modem/router could theoretically reduce your bandwidth as well, although probably not by any noticeable amount.

The best claim is based on increased electricity usage. However, the additional energy needed is probably negligible. Here is a link to a blog post about the increased electricity costs, where they conclude it's about $8 per year in the mid-Atlantic area -- if it's being used. Comcast could give everyone a $1/mo credit for enabling the Xfinity WiFi Hotspot, completely eliminating the issue.

The problem is that they are enabling it without consent.

Comcast should give a large discount to incentiveize people in enabling them. Since they are Comcast, they just said fuck you and turned it on to rake in the sweet sweet profit.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does their own hotspot have a separate IP address and can it be proved beyond a doubt that is is truly a separate network? If not, when the RIAA (or anyone else who uses acronym's) comes knocking on your door...

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

So I am already not getting my advertised ("up to") xMbits... now I get to share that already congested pipe. Sure.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok ok - let's argue for a moment that you guys are SUPER SMART about electricity not being a big deal, or, if it is, one that only counts in the aggregate. Fine, that's what a class action is for.

Haven't you totally missed the point/point of damages here?

I have a cell tower lease. They pay me well to put and keep that tower on my property.

This is an unconstitutional taking of private property every day of the American week. Plain and simple. They not only have to pay me for my costs, discount me for loss in service, insure the security for my personal machines, etc.... they have to pay me for use of my land. THAT's the issue/damage here, dorks. ;)

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how it works.

When ISP's do stuff like this, (for example adding a VoIP modem for POTS) they physically add a second modem. Your TV box probably has a powered-up DOCSIS modem as well, used for VOD.

So when people complain/whine about increased energy use, it's almost nothing, because the device is already sucking power to power the main purpose of the device. Even security concerns are moot, because there is physically a second modem (when you kick DOCSIS 3.0 into Gigabit levels of bandwidth, it actually does channel bonding. Where do you think those non-bonded channels are?) or the IP address is on a separate subnet, and you can't talk to it from your primary network anyway.

DSL can do the same thing, only it uses a second phone line. If you pay for 50Mbits service, and later choose to downgrade to 25 or lower, the unused bandwidth or the second phone line can be repurposed. It's less likely to be done with DSL because it's not cost effective to reserve a second phone line to the premises.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Ksevio]

Looks like it would be about $9.50 on average in CA. However this is also assuming the router is being used a max power 24/7 when it's sharing and would be completely idle 24/7 if it wasn't. It's more likely people would be using their own router so it wouldn't be idle in which case it would use a negligible amount for sharing.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because no router in the world has ever had a security flaw.

Allowing "the enemy" physical access to your network (allowing them on a segregated WiFi network is still establishing a physical link layer connection between them and your network) is the first step in getting pwned. At that point they can start communicating with your router and testing buffer overflows and other things to pwn it.

This is a horrible idea, and whatever asshole at Comcast decided to do it and enable it by default needs to have the shit beat out of him with a clue-by-four.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Comcast could give everyone a $1/mo credit for enabling the Xfinity WiFi Hotspot, completely eliminating the issue."

I would far, far, far rather preserve the security and integrity of my home network then get a god damn $1 monthly credit from Comcast. There's no guarantee there's not some fucking zero day flaw in these routers that will completely expose these people. This "feature" is pure bullshit -- plain and simple.

Not on my fucking network, and not off my electricity. Not on my WiFi bandwidth, and sure as fuck not with a company as untrustworthy as Comcast.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because no router on the Internet has ever had a massive security hole, right?

Allowing unknown people access to your network where they can regularly attack your home router looking for buffer overflows or other exploits is the most idiotic asinine plan that's ever come out of any ISP.

As far as WiFI bandwidth goes, while I can't do anything about my neighbors WiFi network, I can sure as fuck do something about some asshole freeloader running Torrents on my WIFI channel on MY FUCKING ROUTER all god damn day long. This practice is bullshit and has been from the very beginning. Stop defending these assholes.

FUCK. COMCAST.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Zebai]

I'm not a huge fan of many of Comcast policy's but in this case... They don't need your consent, it is their property, under a lease agreement, and they are allowed to modify that agreement at will with notice (and they DO print notices about pending hotspot activations on the statements). I haven't read the service agreement myself but I'm pretty sure that cost to power leased devices is mentioned somehow. In any case you can disable the feature yourself without talking to anyone by logging into your account online. If your that much concerned about it beyond this you should be using your own modem anyway as the gateway is a POS.

The home hotspots also require login prior to use, they can't be used anonymous by non comcast customers

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[QuietLagoon]

...The best claim is based on increased electricity usage. ...

Au contraire... Comcast is usurping location and operational resources of a residence for a business purpose. The best claim is that Comcast should not be doing this without the explicit permission of the property owner.

.
On a customer by customer basis, there can be an attempt to explain away this theft of resources by saying that the resources used are negligible, and that the homeowner should not complain about such a negligible use of the homeowner's resources.

However, I look at this differently, it is absolutely and completely up to the homeowner what resources the homeowner wishes to share with Comcast.

And what is the cost of this theft when you look at all the installations across the country that Comcast is deploying in private residences? How much money is Comcast saving nationwide because Comcast does not have to establish a nationwide hot spot infrastructure without stealing its customers' resources?

And then there is the aspect that this may be against zoning regulations in some areas, i.e., operating a business operation in a residential neighborhood.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[mysidia]

Since the 2nd modem is virtualized, it should not affect your transfer rates or bandwidth quotas.

WiFi can be fairly CPU intensive, and it can interfere with your own emitters.

This kind of interference is much more a problem than a neighbor's WiFi, as WiFi is low powered unlicensed emission, therefore a little bit of distance and walls tend to reduce the noise; this can increase the noise, resulting in worse throughput for wireless LAN clients in your home.

Unless there's a vulnerability in the router (which is possible)

Possible? It is almost certain. We just don't have the details yet.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[smallfries]

Since the 2nd modem is virtualized, it should not affect your transfer rates or bandwidth quotas.

I'm not familiar with with cable in the states, but does this mean that Comcast are selling a service well below line speed? Where I am the cable company will sell you whatever they can squeeze down the line: this week it is 1000/100, but it tends to go up every month or two as they switch cable boxes.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[smallfries]

Before there were dedicated laws against hacking the main charge used was Theft of Electricity, and normally that was only a few cents worth. It will be interesting to see if a corporation has additional rights in this area that it can argue in court.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Harlequin80]

This is exactly what it means. And to be honest what you have is unusual.

Every connection has to come back to a main trunk line. That main trunk will have a current max bandwidth which has to be split between all users on that trunk. So if your main trunk is 10gig the combined speed of everyone on that trunk cannot exceed 10gig no matter how big their fast their final connection is. An easy way to control this is to limit the speeds of the final pipe. If I give you all 20mbit I can fit lots of customers onto the trunk.

They also however model average user behaviour. So they know that shortly after the kids get home from school the demand will peak and users at that time will be most sensitive to latency as they all jump into COD. From this they will know that their peak demand equates to on 40% of their sold bandwidth so they will then oversell their capacity. So instead of only selling 10gig of bandwidth they will sell 22gig and be reasonable confident that they will not hit the pipes limit too often. That is call a contention ratio of 1. Most isps however, and certainly the more dodgy ones will oversell WAY past a ratio of 1. Meaning at peak times your internet will crawl.

So in the end you having the ability to suck at the system limits is unusual because of the implications that has on the rest of the network. You may decide to grab an entire debian repository mirror and in the process completely clog the back haul pipe.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[WaffleMonster]

The home hotspots also require login prior to use, they can't be used anonymous by non comcast customers

Interesting claim... Unsecured wireless L2 networks can't be used anonymously. Perhaps not if it were located on Mars or Neptune far from human civilization. Here on Earth I'm pretty sure it can easily be used anonymously.

All you need to do is wait and hijack the session once an authorized user connects.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[supersat]

Yep. The DOCSIS standards used in the US give you a little less than 40 Mbps downstream per physical 6 MHz channel. Higher-end DOCSIS 3 modems can bond up to eight channels together.

IIRC, your speed is artificially limited by the modem, which is configured remotely by your ISP over SNMP. People used to hack their cable modems to remove the bandwidth limits, but the cable companies started cracking down on them.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

None of that is the point. Stop making excuses for massive corporations doing things behind their customers' backs. If they want to get people on board for this flop, promote it, not backdoor it. But they won't. Because very few people want it.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[smallfries]

Back in the UK we had a situation quite like you describe, we used adsl a lot more than cable but in terms of contention they all worked roughly the same.

Here in Sweden I still find it a bit bizarre but we have no limits at all. Everything has been built either at, or close to, worst case levels of usage. Internet provision seems to be handled on the basis that people will use it. When we had cable I used to leave torrents maxing out the line speed for weeks on end and we never got any complaints. Back then I think our connection was 24mb and I was a relatively light user, only downloading 500-1000gb a month.

Now we are back to really shitty adsl and although there are no bandwidth limits we get have some really crappy copper so the line drops at least five times a day. Can't wait to get fiber. It's sitting un-terminated in our basement and all we need is an engineer to come out and do the final installation. Sadly I kid not when I say it might be another two years. Yay for socialism!

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[jellomizer]

I think the biggest issue is that an IP location lookup will point to your address for Internet traffic that isn't from you.
So say your neighbor does some illegal activity. Now chances are you won't get convicted. But just getting questioned, and investigated is troublesome in its own right.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[squiggleslash]

That's right, when I had Earthlink, they broke into my house once day and installed and turned on the rou... WAIT, THEY DIDN'T.

Sorry, when I had AT&T they hacked into my network and reprogrammed my wireless router to... WAIT, THEY DIDN'T.

Sorry, what I meant was, when I had Comcast, they sent a letter saying that if I used one of their routers they were enabling this new feature. Of course, this feature didn't apply to me because I had my own router, which is an option all Comcast users have. Also at worst, if I got a customer service idiot who informed my otherwise, as some are claiming here has happened to them, I also have the option of canceling and going with someone else.

So actually, yes, Comcast's customers consent to this. They may not proactively seek it, but they do consent by deciding to use Comcast's equipment rather than their own.

BTW, I also think xfinitywifi is a fucking awesome idea. No, really. If Comcast wants to give me some equipment for free that'd implement it (no, I still want to use my own Wifi router Comcast, so what you give me needs to be a box that can plug into a cable splitter or else has a cable pass-thru I can plug my DOCSIS3 modem into) I'll plug it in.

This is a nice way for customers to allow people to have Wifi access without having to give everyone access to their own networks. I like that idea. Slashdotters, who traditionally have hated it when people lock down their own routers as DESTROYING TEH FREEDUMB you'd have thought would also be in favor of it.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[mwvdlee]

But your front lawn makes an excellent hang out spot for my free Wifi needs!
Your neighbors all opted out of sharing Wifi, so I can't very well loiter around in their front lawns, now can I?

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the problem, I used to live in Savannah and we had the caps nearly a year ago. In my testing the public wifi DOES often count on your caps. Comcast denied this but they count not explain how I disconnected everything (physically and no wifi turned on) on my personal network and then downloaded a 2gig linux iso on the public wifi just to see my cap go up 2 gig. They said it was a coincidence and REFUSED to give me a rundown of my traffic on my line. I also have recorded all my transfers on my router (full logging and bandwidth monitoring) and they would show 2x or MORE traffic in use than was. I even showed that I had downloaded nearly 20gig one day when I actually had unplugged my service that day.

Sue them...yes, sue them into the floor.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[drinkypoo]

They could, obviously, do this right now. And if everything is working correctly, all you should have to do is hook it up to a coax splitter. But you only get one modem per account...

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[langelgjm]

"a blog post about the increased electricity costs, where they conclude it's about $8 per year in the mid-Atlantic area -- if it's being used." And this suit is being filed in CALIFORNIA, where the price of power is much higher.

I wouldn't put too much stock in an analysis that confuses kW with kWh (it's probably just a typo, but these things matter). FWIW I live in a state with the fourth highest average electricity costs in the country, so I'm very sensitive to electricity costs. But it's not fair to compare a year's usage at idle vs a year's usage at full load.

If they wanted to make this realistic, they should have estimated the average time one of these public hotspots is used, and then compared that additional cost to the average home usage of the private hotspot (while noting that at some points the usage may overlap, and so the electricity cost may be shared between the two).

Comcast gave me their Technicolor POS modem that came with a public hotspot. It was a terrible router in general, so I took it back and got an older model that has been far more reliable, plays nice with my own router, and doesn't have a public hotspot (or WiFi at all).

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[danudwary]

Indeed. I don't love Comcast - they are robbers who have tried to screw me so many gd times during a recent move across country, and if any other broadband in our area was any better we'd have dumped them. But, that said, this is an awfully nice perk of being their customer. Currently I'm working on Boston while my family lives in CA. We have xfinity at the house in CA (I bought my own modem for $60 and had a really good router. Renting a modem is just dumb), and I get Wifi in Boston off of my neighbors. It's a bit wonky in that for some reason my desktop can't log in, but if I USB-tether my phone or tablet to the desktop it works. (Any ideas on why that would be?). I can walk through any residential neighborhood in the city and I've got wifi.

You can get all worked up about vague security issues or extremely minor power usage, but really, this is a pretty nice and useful feature if you're their customer.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Until kiddie pr0n and "Terrorism!!1!" is tracked back to their cable modem.

Not to mention the heinous crime of copyright infringement.

AC

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[tlhIngan]

Looks like it would be about $9.50 on average in CA. However this is also assuming the router is being used a max power 24/7 when it's sharing and would be completely idle 24/7 if it wasn't. It's more likely people would be using their own router so it wouldn't be idle in which case it would use a negligible amount for sharing.

So it's ok to steal as long as you're stealing a little bit from lots of people?

Sure it's only up to $10 a month. But that doesn't make it right, and in fact, the amount stolen is small enough that mots people would eat the electricity bill because going to court is much more expensive. Hence a class-action lawsuit because stealing $1M from one person is just as bad as stealing $1 from 1M people. Just that those 1M people have far less recourse because the amount stolen is far lower. Do it right and a company can make billions by doing this.

Businesses often get rates cut if they set up a public hotspot using their Comcast account, which is why a lot of hotspots are in front of businesses. Why shouldn't home users get the same?

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[TheCastro1689]

You can't do it online, you have to call in, and on top of that when you reset your router the comcast wifi also resets.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Ksevio]

I didn't say it's OK - I think it's a bad idea but I don't believe in supporting my arguments with misleading or inaccurate facts.

The $9.50 figure is also per year, not per month

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I lived in a closer together environment (condo complex, more in 'town', etc, vs. 1+ac zoning) I think it'd be a great idea... because then I could cancel any contract with cable/DSL and simply use the 'freely' available wifi of others, saturating their bandwidth and paying nothing when I went past my 200GB/mo (or whatever it is) limit.

I mean, seriously, I could just quit my job and get my 'free' Obama phone, 'free' healthcare, and who knows what else I could qualify for... all on the backs of those people who can actually afford (for now) to pay for things.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Khyber]

"I wouldn't put too much stock in an analysis that confuses kW with kWh (it's probably just a typo, but these things matter)."

Now days, the two are used interchangeably as the (hour) part is (understood) like in English with the case of you (understood)

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they are just routing 2 different nets. I doubt they are doing anything that complicated. Multiple SSIDs/vlans/whatever have been pretty common on Cisco stuff for ~10 years now.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Harlequin80]

If you are getting drops from crappy copper do you not have some recourse to the telecoms utility?

I'm in Australia and was having some issues. I spoke to my ISP they saw too many disconnects so the sent a tech out. He plugged this thing into the line that sent a signal back to the rim and it showed him where the problems were on the wire. Was actually very cool as it would say - problem at 243.2 meters. He then went and fixed them all. Admittedly all the problems were at joins with my connection at the road being the worst because of a blown water main a couple of years ago had buried it in mud. But I went from lots of drops and a sync of 7500 to no drops and a sync of 22000.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[smallfries]

That sounds insanely cool. I can't remember what the issue was here, I think it was working out who was responsible for the wire at fault (customer, isp, telco) as they need to organise the repair as well as pay for it.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Harlequin80]

Basically I called my ISP. They made me unplug everything only have modem in etc etc. Then when I still had problems they said they would call a tech but if there was no fault I would have a bill for $70.

The tech came out - went to where my phone line entered the house, opened the panel and actually cut the line at that point. Then he plugged in this device which showed a graph. I think it was showing voltage but I'm not sure. It shows peaks and troughs and from that he could tell where the joins were and where the problems were.

So I had two problems, 1 about 50m from the cabinet and one at the street. So he plug a different device in at the house end which he said would inject a signal and then went to the cabinet end to trace the fault more accurately.

Then finally, once he had fixed the problems he did a line sync at the house. Basically he said at that point there would be no charge, but if he stepped inside the house it immediately started billing me. He said the line was perfect up to the junction and if I still had problems it would be my internal wiring. FOrtunately I don't have any problems.
                                                                        Upstream Downstream
Current Rate (Kbps) 1020 24575

Max Rate (Kbps) 1097 26580

SNR Margin (dB) 7.3 5.9

Line Attenuation (dB) 6.7 12

Best thing for me is I now know I am on just 430m to the cabinet. Which is frankly awesome since I live on acreage.

Re:I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just none of that is true.

the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[zr]

and thats the thing they're getting sued over.. ..there's something seriously wrong with our legal system..

Re:the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[SlayerofGods]

There's nothing wrong with the legal system.... yet.
I could sue you for making this post if I wanted to pay the filling fee; the only real test of the legal system is how far the case goes.

Re: the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[Chris453]

You think it is OK for Comcast to steal electricity from their customers? If they forced you to install a software application on your computer in order to use their service would you complain? What if that application was a bit coin miner and they kept all profits? See any problems now?

Re:the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[Anonymous Coward]

Except he/she/it would have to turn up in court to defend it, potentially obtaining a lawyer to do so, and pay for that and the lost time out of pocket. It's not a no-win-no-fee situation over there, so yeah, your legal system's a bit fucked. I'm not saying mine's amazingly better (UK).

Re:the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[zr]

you could _attempt_ to sue me. you'd have to find a judge who'd agree to take the case. possible? sure. likely? don't think so. not only that, there are laws against frivolous litigation.

that said, the problem is, suit at question isn't considered frivolous.

Re:the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[SlayerofGods]

How do you find a judge to 'take the case' until you've already filed a law suit?
I'm not sure you're familiar with the process of filing a law suit. And who is to say it's frivolous? You? Are we to forward you all law suits for preapproval?
No; this is how the legal system is suppose to work.
You are allowed to file a case for whatever you want. You can sue for more money then exists on earth if you want. http://what-if.xkcd.com/96/
Now what can and normally happens in these cases is the defendant will file their answer saying something to the effect of 'This person is crackpot' and file a motion to dismiss. The judge agrees. Bing bang boom the case is gone.

So really once Comcast files their answer to something of the effect; "It's in their contract we're allowed to do this" and the judge doesn't drop it then maybe you'll have something to whine about. But till then complaining about someone 'filing a lawsuit against comcast' is like complaining about the people that sue the FBI for stealing their brain waves.

Re:the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[sjames]

David copperfield was sued by a man claiming to be God for theft of divine power. I kid you not. The fact that it got far enough that Copperfield had to actually respond to it shows significant dane brammage in the legal system.

Re: the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[thegarbz]

I didn't realise providing you with a device you use to access the internet was required to come with some strict energy compliance.

Next up I better sue Samsung because their TV steals my electricity while I watch it too. I would like to see someone justify exactly how much is "stolen" between a modem with a wifi hotspot, and a modem with 2 wifi hotspots, because the tiny piece of extra software needed to do that would make such a huge difference in energy use!. God forbid someone compare their current modem to a modem of 5 years ago (I'm willing to bet they used to be more power hungry), or compare it to a different modem / wifi hotspot with more power.

There are so very many reasons to hate comcast. Complaining that they are stealing power just makes the entire thing look very silly.

Re: the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realise providing you with a device you use to access the internet...

Of course, "providing you with a device" really means "leasing a device to you at an outrageous rate, then continuing to use that device to offer their services to others".

Re: the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the point. It doesn't matter if it costs an extra $.01 a month or $10 a month for the customer. Comcast is stealing money from their customers. Electricity isn't free and taking it without permission IS stealing because someone is paying for it. Just ask the guy who was arrested for plugging his car into a school outlet. I believe he was arrested for stealing $.04 of electricity. Is it somehow OK if you are a huge corporation?

Re: the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[howaboutthisone]

"Next up I better sue Samsung because their TV steals my electricity while I watch it too. "

Which shows you miss the point, since your samsung tv is eating electricity while YOU use it, and they're talking about the router eating electricity while someone else, some random person with a deal with comcast that your not involved in, uses it.

A better example is if when you bought your samsung and are in your house watching it, samsung puts another tv outside on your wall and plugs it in to let others watch it. Now if that blatant use of your paid-for resources doesn't bother you, then so be it, but alteast get the situation straight.

As for the amount, it doesn't matter the amount. It's theft, it's intentional, and it should be stopped.

Re: the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[Anonymous Coward]

"Next up I better sue Samsung because their TV steals my electricity while I watch it too. "

Which shows you miss the point, since your samsung tv is eating electricity while YOU use it, and they're talking about the router eating electricity while someone else, some random person with a deal with comcast that your not involved in, uses it.

A better example is if when you bought your samsung and are in your house watching it, samsung puts another tv outside on your wall and plugs it in to let others watch it. Now if that blatant use of your paid-for resources doesn't bother you, then so be it, but alteast get the situation straight.

As for the amount, it doesn't matter the amount. It's theft, it's intentional, and it should be stopped.

Or your new Samsung TV comes with a microphone and webcam on it, and while you're having sex with your GF (I know, I know, it's slashdot - the GF isn't allowed in your parents basement alone with you ;)) they're recording it over the cable and selling it on a pay-per-view amateur sex website. You should at least be profiting off it too, right?! ;)

Re: the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[Anonymous Coward]

So? That's the issue with equal access to justice for everyone..... there are a lot of dumb people out there. If you have a better system I'd love to hear it.

Re: the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[thegarbz]

Which shows you miss the point, since your samsung tv is eating electricity while YOU use it, and they're talking about the router eating electricity while someone else, some random person with a deal with comcast that your not involved in, uses it.

I'm unfamiliar with the concept of a router not being used, especially given that in many cases it provides the local phone (via VoIP) as well. It doesn't magically powerup when you open up a web browser.

That was my point. You have bought a piece of equipment from comcast. That piece of equipment came with power requirements. Did you look at the power requirements when you bought it? If not you have no one to blame but yourself. There's every chance that while they are "stealing" power now you're still running cheaper and leaner than you were back 5 years ago when they weren't "stealing" power from you.

Buying a piece of equipment and then complaining about it's power use is frankly idiotic. You don't want them to "steal" from you, just unplug it from the wall when not in use. I assume you do this anyway considering how much power you think having a virtual software modem uses.

Re: the one thing about comcast i could get behind

[sjames]

How about at least a cursory judicial review before the defendant is notified. If the suit can't win on it's face the defendant never has to even hear about it. For example because it's allegations are absurd, not in the court's jurisdiction, or even if true it creates no liability for the defendant.

Consider it this way, the court used it's full weight and power to command Copperfield to answer to utter nonsense. In fact, the court should not have brought it's weight to bear unless the judge was fully prepared for the possibility that he would one day soon tell a throng of press that the plaintiff was, in fact, the alpha and the omega and that Copperfield had stolen God's divine power AND that the court now considered itself to have jurisdiction over all major and minor deities.

I'm guessing that was not actually the case :-)

Streetlights anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be ok if the electric company required you to aim your yard light into the street for the publics free use?

Re:Streetlights anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be ok if the electric company required you to aim your yard light into the street for the publics free use?

The electricity company paid for the electricity it used, but it used up a few cents worth of network traffic a year?

And it did a whole bunch of good to people in the neighborhood.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that at all. Do you?

Re:Streetlights anyone?

[LiENUS]

Would it be ok if the electric company required you to aim your yard light into the street for the publics free use?

your electric company has never tried to sell you "security lighting"? It's exactly that, they charge you money to install a light that shines on the street. You have to pay every month on your bill for it.

Re:Streetlights anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at your property tax bill, you'll see you are paying for the streetlight out on the street.

Suing over something that can easily be changed?

[Holistic Missile]

Why sue? For $80 she could buy a Surfboard 6141 at Best Buy, and save the money by not paying modem rental. The modem will pay for itself in 10 months. If she is using Comcast's phone service, she would need to buy an eMTA (Embedded Multimedia Terminal Adapter). Although some cable franchises may not allow them on their network. One of the reasons I did this was to avoid being a node on their public network. Another one is that I have a router with custom firmware that I am quite happy with, and their integrated unit will probably not allow dd-wrt or tomato. I like to be in control of my own network.

I would imagine that the setting could be turned off in the rental eMTA from Comcast. In my subdivision, I have only seen one XfinityHotSpot network, and it was only for a short time, then it disappeared. My guess is that the Comcast customer noticed this brand new XfinityHotSpot had as strong a signal as their own router, and figured out how to disable it in short order.

One of the things that bugs me about America is this mindset that we seem to generally have of, 'sue first, look at other options later, if at all.'

wifi

[Anonymous Coward]

I lived in a condo in Denver where comcast did this. The problem is instead of seeing 15 other networks, I saw 20-25, many from comcast. For a one bedroom condo I had to run two routers due to signal issues and finally had to switch to a 5ghz band. When I moved I refused to give comcast a reason why I wanted to cancel service, was hoping for a Ryan Block style call but they were actually pretty easy to work with.

Didn't BT Broadband Do The Same?

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in 2010-2012. One day I checked who was using my BT Homehub because it wasn't running normally and discovered a whole host of mac addresses (at least 10) as if I had never protected my router with a passkey. BT had opted me in their national Wifi network (Openzone? Fon?) without my consent. I don't know how they did it. It wasn't the case before, the mac addresses were devices I recognised. So did they upgrade my router's firmware or sent a secret code through a backdoor? Very strange. I found how to disable it. My ADSL was already limited, 5.5Mbps and my package was upto 20Mbps, didn't want those Apple ipod/iphone fucks to use what little i had.

Useful

[Dan East]

I live in a rural area, and do dual-sport motorcycle riding on mountain trails in the Appalachians. There is a small "town" where we stop to fuel up and eat, and this place doesn't even have cell phone service. However, I did find that there is an Xfinity hotspot. Actually, I didn't even know what the Xfinity thing was until seeing this story, but it now makes sense why there was a "commercial" hotspot at this little crossroads. They allow two one-hour free trial sessions a month, which just happens to be about the frequency I ride through there, so it has been extremely useful to communicate while having lunch. So I give Xfinity a thumbs-up as it was that or nothing at all (and I do mean nothing) in this one particular place.

What Comcast needs to do is share just a tiny bit of this revenue with customers whose routers provide this service. It might only amount to a dollar or two a month, but that would be an incentive to have it turned on, and would offset the extra cost of electricity.

Re:Useful

[Anonymous Coward]

What Comcast needs to do is share just a tiny bit of this revenue with customers whose routers provide this service. It might only amount to a dollar or two a month, but that would be an incentive to have it turned on, and would offset the extra cost of electricity.

Comcast: How about zero dollars a month? Or better, zero dollars a week. Thats fair right? /sarcasm

If corporations had to shared revenues with customers for this kind of shit, they wouldn't do it.

Re:Useful

[JaredOfEuropa]

Don't Comcast allow subscribers who have turned on the Xfinity service in their on router access to all other Xfinity hotspots? That's how my ISP sells its customers on the service (it's opt-out, but they did provide easy instructions on how to disable it).

Re:Useful

[Anonymous Coward]

In my city my ISP (cogeco) is trying something similar, except they were smart enough to not use home routers and partner up with local businesses, public libraries, recreation centers, arenas/stadius, city buildings, malls, ect.

Add in the wifi from a million and one coffee shops and fast food joints, and coverage is pretty solid.

Re:Useful

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine that. A place where such a hotspot scenario is useful. Not say, where it is actively being pushed and actually not needed, or wanted. Still going to blame Comcast for being shitty here, sorry!

Re:Useful

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have Comcast internet, you have access to their hotspots.

Re:Useful

[Anonymous Coward]

I only used an Xfinity hotspot while I was in an apartment waiting to move into a house and I found the service to be terrible. It was fine for basic internet browsing, but downloads of files were difficult since connections kept breaking. I'd need to attempt downloads multiple times until one went through.

For some bizarre reason, data from the hotspot was routed to Portland, Oregon while I was much closer to Seattle.

Comcast's actual service (with a cable modem) has much better performance than whatever their hotspot does. It's also not bad if you're in an area without data caps.

I'm perferctly willing to share my net w/strangers

[JoeyRox]

As long as Comcast lets me share my cable TV with all my friendly neighbors as well. Since we're all in the sharing mood...

How to get a Comcast hotspot in trouble

[Cito]

Connect to hotspot

Use tor or old gnutella client. Search and download
R@ygold, hussyfan, babyshivid, pthc content.

See if folders are shared online, store goods there blatantly, otherwise email your newly gotten files to Comcast, whitehouse, NSA, FBI along with posting shooting threat on 4chan.

Disconnect from random hotspot and drive away...

This is why public open hotspots are a bad idea...easy to screw owners over

Re: How to get a Comcast hotspot in trouble

[AvitarX]

I assume they have client isolation. Hotels do it. Some home routers do it and can't be told not to. I can't think of a reason Comcast would decide to not do so on a public ap.

Re:How to get a Comcast hotspot in trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to give a valid Comcast account username and password in a portal page to be granted access, so unless you have some stolen credentials they will know who did it. Not so easy to do a smash and grab.

Re:How to get a Comcast hotspot in trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

No you don't, use the trial option. You only need an email address and zip code. Both are easily faked. Then you need to change your mac address every 1 hour to bypass their time limits.

Re:How to get a Comcast hotspot in trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

No you don't, use the trial option. You only need an email address and zip code. Both are easily faked. Then you need to change your mac address every 1 hour to bypass their time limits.

I used it for the first time this past weekend since my wife and I were out of town on a short romantic vacation and it popped up as an SSID. I was presented with a portal page that did not offer a trial option, it simply stated that to use it you must be an existing Comcast (Xfinity) Internet subscriber and presented a login page asking for a Comcast account username and password.

I supposed the process may be different in different parts of the country, or perhaps changes depending on your device information (MAC address, browser user agent, etc.), but that is what I was shown.

Re:How to get a Comcast hotspot in trouble

[LiENUS]

The hotspot is on a vlan seperate from the subscribers network, whats more is you have to log in with your credentials so follow this plan the only person getting an fbi visit is you.

Re:How to get a Comcast hotspot in trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you need to change your mac address every 1 hour to bypass their time limits.

Sounds like a cronjob.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Shados]

Comcast tends to make it hard to bring your own modem. The list they give of the ones that will work is frequently out of date, once you have one you may or may not need to talk with them to get it recognized, and they may just lie to you instead of helping.

Beyond that, its just that, again, they don't tell you when they turn it on (until months later, I eventually got a letter, though I already knew they had). I had tried to turn it off via the account settings (there's a button to do so), but it always has "an unexpected error". I eventually managed to get it turned off by talking to an agent (I wasn't in the mood to fight with a third party one that should work but doesn't because Comcast's a dick company).

Now, even after all that, it still doesn't matter: I live in a very high density area, and there's something stupid like 30+ xfinity wifi hotspot within range. The 2.4ghz band is totally useless from interference.

Easy right? I just got a 5ghz router, and that works great. Oh, but the Wii U is 2.4ghz... Well, I'll wire that. My TV is 5ghz so thats fine. My roku is 2.4ghz...I could buy a new one. Oh but the Nest thermostat....and the list goes on.

Its just something they shouldn't be doing, flat and simple.

Opt has thousands of hotspots too.. is mine?

[See Attached]

When we see the ads, who is not impressed by the thousands of hotspots advertised? Their website boasts https://www.optimum.net/pages/... "the easiest way to enable it is to take it to any one of our thousands of hotspots and follow the steps outlined below" But thats almost as evil as adding a set top box thats plugged in / running 24/7, (make that one set top box per TV). At 40W, it adds up.. But.. you say it has an off button??? Not really. The annoying Blue LED goes off but the power consumption stays at 40W. Whats up with that? But.. I digress... Time for some choice in this market.

Re:Opt has thousands of hotspots too.. is mine?

[Anonymous Coward]

The optimum hotspots are usually beige boxes strung along the CATV wires overhead. A box about the size of a cigar box with one or two bumps on the bottom. My area is pretty well strung up with them and it is a reason to use cableco instead of Fios (yes we are lucky, we have a choice)

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Anonymous Coward]

Other options?

Here's one other thing that might "bug" you about America: constitutional rights.

See, I have a cell tower lease. I'm paid well for the use of my land.

This ComCast thing is a straightforward unconstitutional taking. They have no lease on those lands. They are stealing. In fact, there is no other lawful option but to go to court and seek damages... or risk an easement by adverse possession (essentially the forfeiture of a constitutional right.)

Choice: Public WiFi or you don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I signed up for their Triple Play because it was cheaper than my Double play. Got the VOIP modem, which doubles as a router and WiFi hotspot whether you want that or not. Went into their settings and right where there was a box that should disable the public WiFi...there was NONE! Yep. It cannot be disabled.

I disconnected it immediately and wasted my next day off taking it back to Comcast.
"I want to return this. I don't want your WiFi in my network."
"You can turn if off."
[Thinking...I'm a lot smarter than you. I think I know how to disable WiFi.]
"No, you cannot."
"Sure, you just go into blah blah blah..."
Wanted to answer: "Do I look clueless?" Actually answered: "Yeah, I did that. No such option."
"Oh, they sent you [model number]. You can't turn those off."

At this point, I realize he could have looked at the unit and figured that out...you know, since it's right in FRONT OF HIM.

"Right. I don't want it."
"It's perfectly safe. Comcast hired hackers to try to breach it and they didn't succeed."
"I don't believe you. Take this thing back and let me get on my way."

I've wanted to cancel my Comcast ever since. The cable box they gave me from 2009 isn't helping--I complained for a new one after the previous one sucked and this is what they gave me. It actually got WORSE. 24 hours of HD storage...didn't figure out that until it was half full of shows I want to watch. As soon as I can find anything remotely better, I'm canning this horrible service. Strangely, I liked their service I had back in my previous location. It worked well and I never had issues. Here, it's nothing but garbage.

One thing that Comcast is doing which is cool...

[iamacat]

And people are on their case! Having WiFi access practically everywhere is a great thing, and will improve your life and save you money. It will more than make up for tiny additional costs of electricity. It absolutely has to be opt out, of a "write a paper letter" variety, because people are lazy and stupid.

Comcast is doing lots of evil things. Force bundling TV (internet alone costs more), modem rental charges, HD charges, additional TV charges, traffic prioritization, not letting people subscribe to individual channel, insane prices for phone compared to ooma. Yet people sue them for one thing which is creative and good for them.

Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

put the router modem in an old microwave oven (for shielding) and remove the antennas.

UPC does the same thing throughout Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

And guess what, we like it.

My Christmas wish

[Anonymous Coward]

would be Comcast being sued for over $100 million and its stock price dropping by 40% in a single day.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Great Big Bird]

Do some painting... http://www.lessemf.com/paint.h...

The real issue is a technicality

[Anonymous Coward]

The evident failure of the company to provide Miranda right notifications during de facto statutory dynamic utilization of binary electronic network access resources may result in prima fascia evidence of non-conformance to default non-regulatory preemptive agreements.

It is that simple.

Re:The real issue is a technicality

[Anonymous Coward]

The evident failure of the company to provide Miranda right notifications during de facto statutory dynamic utilization of binary electronic network access resources may result in prima fascia evidence of non-conformance to default non-regulatory preemptive agreements.

It is that simple.

The poster is assuming that the preemptive agreement is a default agreement. Is the agreement by default or if some notification is provided during account sign up?

Re:The real issue is a technicality

[Anonymous Coward]

The evident failure of the company to provide Miranda right notifications during de facto statutory dynamic utilization of binary electronic network access resources may result in prima fascia evidence of non-conformance to default non-regulatory preemptive agreements.

It is that simple.

Statutory utilization can not be de facto.

Comcast Business Class

[pak9rabid]

Wait, what?

If your modem is truly set to bridge mode (IE, it's effectively a Layer 2 device) and you're handing the Ethernet port off to your own router, why would there still be an additional public IP on the modem?

Thats why we have modem & router seperate

[bobjr94]

Thats why we have 2 separate devices at my office. A non-wifi modem plugged into our own router. Faster, no unwanted traffic, no security issues and no monthly rental fees. Just buy your own equipment then you can stop complaining about what comcast is doing with their router in your home or office. They can not force you to rent from them, if they say so ask to talk to someone else.

Tin foil hat solution?

[spineboy]

Wrap aluminum foil around it - to block the signal?

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[dnebin]

We're nerds here, so we know how to get into the comcast router and turn shit off.

Mom and pop cable subscribers who just use the network to view facebook updates of their grandkids, they don't know how to reset the darn thing let alone how to get in there and turn shit off.

Suing comcast to get it shut off will allow all of these kinds of users some relief, disabling something they really don't want.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Greyfox]

Maybe they just hate Comcast and think suing them will make for months of frolic and cavortment? Or maybe one of Comcast's competitors put them up to it. There are all sorts of justifications for suing Comcast!

Re:One thing that Comcast is doing which is cool..

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of us with a clue on how routers work do not consider this to be a "Good" thing. Most of us do not want some random asshole connecting to our network, whether it is a "segregated" network or not. There have been many, many routers with publicly disclosed security holes that allow you to cross over from the "protected" network to the "private" side, and do other things to screw with the network and monitor it. I would have no problem if it were opt in instead of opt out, but of course that would take away 99.99999999% of their hotspots because nobody who knows how will voluntarily turn this shit on for their own network.

Comcast: Least popular company in the U.S.

[Futurepower(R)]

I've had good luck with the Motorola SB6141 DOCSIS 3.0 modem. (The SB6121 is apparently an obsolete model.) Eventually DOCSIS 3.1 modems will be available.

It took me an estimated 9 hours of communicating with Comcast representatives to get Comcast to bill at the advertised rate, instead of far more than Comcast advertises. This is what works: Call the Comcast executive offices at 215-640-8960. Be very polite and logical, but insistent.

Don't check your internet access speed with Speedtest.net. Apparently that web site always reports the advertised rate, the connection rate, not the data delivery rate. DSLReports Speed Test shows that I get one-seventh the speed Comcast advertises.

Comcast was the 2014 Worst Company In America.

Comcast has apparently found that most people don't spend the many hours Comcast makes it necessary to protest over-billing.

It's interesting to me that Comcast apparently expects employees to abuse customers, and Comcast employees hear that as permission to abuse Comcast, also.

Apparently the U.S. government no longer protects the people, but just allows any abuse that will make the rich richer, or allow the violent to be more violent.

Re:Comcast: Least popular company in the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently the U.S. government no longer protects the people, but just allows any abuse that will make the rich richer, or allow the violent to be more violent.

The US Government? Why not protect yourself and DROP THE DAMN SERVICE.

Geezuz, always run to the gubmint 'cause your too dumb to stand up for yourself. "...but there's no other internet provider...sniff sniff."
Then move.

Re:Comcast: Least popular company in the U.S.

[drinkypoo]

Don't check your internet access speed with Speedtest.net. Apparently that web site always reports the advertised rate, the connection rate, not the data delivery rate. DSLReports Speed Test shows that I get one-seventh the speed Comcast advertises.

Your ISP is free to run a speedtest server, my shitty WISP (Digital Path) just started doing that recently so the speed test is as useless as if you have comcast. However, the DSLreports speed test doesn't work. It always tells me that there is a connection problem, and that I should try again. Yes, after it loads. Do you know of any competently implemented speed tests?

Re:Comcast: Least popular company in the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? Your solution to deal with a shitty ISP is to move?

Re:Comcast: Least popular company in the U.S.

[PIBM]

That speedtest is broken. It uses too much CPU even on a i5-4570K to be able to measure a 30mbps line correctly. One of the cores is at 100% while the test run and it has trouble refreshing the images and the download speed goes down. Anyway.

Re:Comcast: Least popular company in the U.S.

[Cederic]

My ISP host their recommended speedtest service.

What impresses me is that a several gigabyte game download on Steam matches the download rates reported by the speedtest service.

It's still more consistently quicker during off-peak hours, but the speedtest isn't rigged.

Re:Comcast: Least popular company in the U.S.

[Shirley Marquez]

By default, speedtest.net will use a Comcast server if you are on a Comcast connection, and they will choose one very close to you. Unsurprisingly, they have lots and lots of bandwidth to those and you will get very high speeds. When I tried it just now I got 99Mbps on speedtest.net, which is very close to the "up to 105Mbps" that is advertised for my level of service. And other people in my house might be using the other 5 Mbps. It's not so much that they're not reporting the data delivery rate; it's that they are reporting the rate to a particularly well placed server.

Servers that are more distant and servers that are not on Comcast's own network will give slower results. When I tried the DSL Reports test to a server in New Jersey I got 42Mbps. Still respectable, but less than half the speedtest.net result. Not as bad as the one-seventh that you report, but as with all things internet YMMV. I have seen downloads from major sites like Microsoft and Apple get above 10 megabytes per second (10 megabytes = 80 megabits), which means that they actually approach the full data delivery rate in some cases. Most likely those downloads are actually coming from local content delivery caches rather than directly from the corporate sites.

The SB6121 still seems to be available, but the SB6141 doesn't cost much more so people might as well buy it. The main difference is that the SB6121 has four channel bonding (theoretical maximum speed 160Mbps or thereabouts) and the SB6141 has eight channel bonding (320Mbps or so). Even if your tier of service doesn't exceed the 160Mbps maximum of the slower model, the additional channel capability might mean that you will get the advertised speed more often because the system will be able to distribute your data over more channels. My new SB6141 also runs much cooler than the two year old SB6121 it replaced, but it's possible that the hardware of the older model has been updated.

I'm not a fan of Comcast's customer service. Last night I actually had an acceptable experience with them (had to replace a failed SB6121 with a new SB6141), but other times have been nightmares. The service works pretty well once they actually get it set up, though, and I haven't had the billing hassles that others have had.

I am by no means a fan of Comcast...

[bazaarmunchkin]

... but their Xfinity Wifi Hotspot program, if implemented correctly, shouldn't cause customers any real harm.

Regardless of how their customer and public networks are separated on the router...... Being on a Comcast network is like volunteering to spend your free time in a maximum security prison yard. From years of doing support for both business class and residential class customers, I have never seen a network experience such of a cesspool of attacks as what I have discovered with Comcast customers. To be clear, being a Comcast broadband customer is where the real harm begins.

Re:One thing that Comcast is doing which is cool..

[iamacat]

Who says your router does not have security holes that allows external internet traffic to cross over to your private network? Is public wireless network somehow magical and more scary than public wired network?

I don't mind if you opt out, just as long as you are banned from accessing any xfinitywifi hotspots for at least half a year if and when you decide to rejoin. If I can't have WiFi when I happen to be around your house, you can't use mine or temporarily opt in while you are on vacation for a week.

Now, in reality I bought my own WiFi-less modem because I don't want to pay for equipment rental. I do think Comcast is evil, but this is one decent idea that it came up with.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Bobberly]

Why a lawsuit? Because this is (according the the suit) a wrong by which the legal system allows relief (read: money). In case of the lawyers, there is enough money that warrants their attention. There is no right, wrong, or good ideas when it comes to the legal system. If your rights were violated (accidentally or willfully) and you can navigate the legal system go for it. Why pass up a free lotto ticket? Even though Comcast is doing something seemingly beneficial to all, they did so in a manner that (possibly) infringed on their customers. Meanwhile I can't find a lawyer to file a case against a repairman over an $8000 air conditioner because they want $3000 up front.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[WaffleMonster]

Why sue? For $80 she could buy a Surfboard 6141 at Best Buy, and save the money by not paying modem rental. The modem will pay for itself in 10 months.

My guess they are suing because they don't like Comcast acting like a bunch of asshats and this is the only avenue available to them with any hope of making them stop.

It isn't so much about any one individual as it is aggregate affect on the masses of a scheme which uses customers facilities and power without any compensation and largely without their knowledge while concurrently charging $10/month for rental... strikingly distasteful.

People should not have to be tech heads to keep from being taken for a ride by cable monopolies in the same way people who are not mechanics or HVAC experts or doctors or loan experts do not deserve to be taken advantage of.

One of the things that bugs me about America is this mindset that we seem to generally have of, 'sue first, look at other options later, if at all.'

Yea this sucks all around doesn't it. Monopolies suck, using the legal system to get your way or bully others sucks, people acting like asshats sucks... Society gets what it deserves.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Anonymous Coward]

Why prosecute murder? Just make more people.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[AK Marc]

Why sue? For $80 she could buy a Surfboard 6141 at Best Buy,

Yes, nobody should ever exercise their rights because it's easier to let the corporations take them than to take a stand and protect them.

Same setup as BT have in the UK - what's the BFD ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I have BT broadband in my home, people in the street nearby can use a BT hotspot. The quid pro quo, Clarisse, is that I get to use a massive number of hotspots for free in return, as part of my monthly service.
Parked in a street outside my kid's band practice waiting to collect here ? There's a hotspot. Sat in a cafe ? There's a hotspot.
In fact in a typical densely populated neighbourhood I get almost solid wifi coverage for miles and miles. Is that worth $8 a year to me ? Probably. And it's an option I can always switch off.

Now
- I'm no fan of Comcast (though it's a few years since Iived in the USA)
- Sure, someone might discover a flaw in their router and bridge the networks (but then they might discover a flaw and just hack my personal wifi network anyway).

But overall, what the hell are most people REALLY concerned about ? The electricity is the only real legit grounds for complaint and you can be sure that if they'd rolled it out with a pro rata cash back to compensate for the juice used there would still be people moaning.

What I really want out of a home router is
- my own private wifi
- a public facing hotspot (in return for which I get to use a million hotspots nationwide)
- a guest network for people who visit. Who may not have an account with my ISP but whom I don't want on my LAN either, In fact I'd rather have the option to create a shortlived temporary login for this guest account.,

Does anyone offer the third of these yet ?

This is news???? BT have been doing this for years

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the UK BT have been doing this kind of thing for years, You can't turn it off ether.
The BT Home HUB since version 2 (we are now on version 5) has broadcast 3 SSID's Your own home network, BTPHON and BTOPENZONE.
They allow any of there customers to connect to any other customers home routers using this.
I do have to say that both the BTOPENZONE and the BTPHON are captive portals requiring a username and password for access, I think they are both tunnelled over ipsec so there are no privacy worries.

As for extra power consumption I'm not sure there is much more power usage than any other router. It does slow things down when more users are connected. But this is the same for any WIFI router.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Anonymous Coward]

Or switch provider.

Welcome to Soviet America - Where you have a choice but only one option.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Anonymous Coward]

The company does something crappy. Switch provider and let them die as customers abandons them.
That is how capitalism works.

DOCSIS3 modem for Residential...

[Etherwalk]

I had Comcast for residential service for two years not long ago (2010-2012), and they gave me no problem with using my own modem. (They did try to charge me for not returning it when I disconnected service, but corrected their error without a hassle.)

They also still list acceptable personal modems on their website:

http://mydeviceinfo.comcast.ne...

Re:DOCSIS3 modem for Residential...

[watermark]

They tried to charge me for not returning my own modem as well

Re:DOCSIS3 modem for Residential...

[houstonbofh]

They did try to charge me for not returning it when I disconnected service, but corrected their error without a hassle.

That is normal. They also often charge for equipment returned to a storefront. Now I only use purchased hardware with them. (For both myself and my clients.) When they ask why I say "Because I do not trust you." It is usually followed by a few seconds of silence, and then "OK." :)

Re:DOCSIS3 modem for Residential...

[Anonymous Coward]

They charged me a modem rental and refunded it when I pointed out that I was using my own modem, if I recall correctly.

The Netherlands has something similar

[MikeyVB]

Here in the Netherlands our largest cable providers (Ziggo and UPC) also turned every home cable modem into a public hotspot about a year or two ago. All customers are given an account to use the hotspot network anywhere in the country. It can be pretty handy if you are with a laptop in a city and need internet access. Your laptop will get get a connection and away you go. They are on separate IP space, and don't affect your usable bandwidth or throughput as they are lower priority traffic than your own subscription traffic. While this functionality is opt out rather than opt in, you can just login to the console of your cable modem and disable it as desired. When you opt out like that however you also lose the access to use hotspot network entirely. The cost of using the network is to participate. The only thing that I see wrong with it is that it is an opt out system rather than an opt in. But I can also see that something like this wouldn't reach the "critical mass" to make it all work otherwise.

Re:The Netherlands has something similar

[Shados]

If it was a reasonable company doing it, it wouldn't be so bad. In this case for example, for a lot of people, the account setting to turn it off doesn't work (you get an "unexpected error" when clicking the button on the website). You're also only notified of it up to several months after they turn it on, and their customer reps lie about it and ways to get out of it.

If they were up front, honest, and had a decent workflow to get out of it such that a non-techy could understand how to do it without being lied to, and it wasn't enabled by default in areas where population density means a saturated 2.4ghz space, thus making a lot of every day devices fail because of it, there wouldn't be any problem.

Re:The Netherlands has something similar

[Anonymous Coward]

It was the same with my provider here in Germany. Same rules: you can disable it, but then you're also not able to connect to other hotspots.

As you said, if they'd gone through the opt-in route, it'd never get the critical mass, but I was still pissed off about this since:
- They didn't even inform customers this had been enabled. I had to find out by myself I was sharing my internet.
- I was paying an extra 2€/month for the "wifi functionality". That is, their modem has the hardware to support wifi, but it's disabled in software and you have to pay extra to enable it. If they wanted to use my modem for their hotspot network the least they could've done was to drop that charge.
- Their modem is some cheap low quality brand and was having trouble routing my internal network, much less a second virtual lan.
- Disabling the hotspot functionality took over a week. I had to send a request and wait until one of their technicians got off their ass to disable it remotely.

Basically the whole deal just reeked of self-serving greediness. I'm not against the idea of a hotspot network (even if I personally don't need it since I have a very decent mobile data contract), but not when it'd done in these terms.

BTW I don't believe in protecting the guilty: The shitty provider is Kabel Deutschland. Don't use them unless it's your only choice (as in my case).

Re:The Netherlands has something similar

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice! So everyone and their uncle can deliberately stuff evidence of felonious crimes into your own home modem! Just think of all the cartoons apparently depicting underage actors and actresses they could find!

AC

Re:The Netherlands has something similar

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not an open hotspot. You still need to have an account with the provider in order to log in.

Re:The Netherlands has something similar

[Anonymous Coward]

Lower priority traffic? It sounds like it will affect the "net neutrality" arguments.

Re:The Netherlands has something similar

[mdielmann]

As well, since it is a different IP address, it will be fairly clear that even though it went through your modem it likely wasn't you who downloaded the offending material.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[AK Marc]

Fraud shouldn't be punished, that's the Loonitarian Ideal.

Re:I'm perferctly willing to share my net w/strang

[dimitrisscript]

Give this man a cookie.

They're not the only ones...

[Mr Muppet]

BT have been doing this for years with their home hubs, with BT FON. It's enabled by default, but you can disable it, although you have to disable it on their account management site, and they then tell the router to disable it (sounds a bit wierd to do it that way, but there you go). I use my own router though, and BT are happy for me to do so, which stops any potential issues anyway.

Faraday

[Anonymous Coward]

Faraday came up with a solution to prevent unwanted wireless transmissions a few years ago.
Cage the modem, with holes for the cables :)

It must be some kind of phobia

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like the terms of service, don't sign the fucking contract. If you're afraid of getting virtual cooties from "strangers" using the same physical device as you with a firewall in between, there are other ISPs. But you'll still share an Internet with three billions of strangers.

The lawyers are going to get the money

[Anonymous Coward]

again.

Yeah, buy your own DOCSIS 3.0 modem

[JohnnyDoesLinux]

That's the solution....

Then after two years of having your own modem, you start getting charged $8 a month for modem lease. I call them, they tell me that I have to PROVE to them that I am not using their modem (even though they do not use Zoom modems, and they acknowledge that), and they have no indication that they ever sent me one.

It took many months to straighten that mess out.

Google fibre, please come to my town...

I can turn it off?

[sabbede]

I don't see that option anywhere on my router/modem. I have a wifi on/off setting, but there's no indication that it turns off xfinity wifi. I have it off, and don't have a hotspot showing, so I guess that does it.

If I had the option to turn on the hotspot, I probably would. I really don't mind, and I've used the hotspots in the past, so it would be only fair.

Re:I can turn it off?

[TVmisGuided]

It can't be turned off by the consumer. It has to be disabled by Tier 2 tech support. And they will fight you tooth and nail to keep it on, hoping they'll wear you out before you convince them to turn it off.

Re:I can turn it off?

[sabbede]

Geez... At least I can put the thing into bridge-mode without tier 2 now.

But that still doesn't explain why I can barely "hear" xfinitywifi. According to the app, the nearest hotspot is a block away.

Like I said though, I wouldn't really mind. Assuming that traffic wouldn't count against my cap (which they promised didn't exist, the fuckers.)

open wireless movement

[Anonymous Coward]

https://openwireless.org/

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[squiggleslash]

Yes, the list is out of date, but you're missing the fact you don't really need it. Comcast uses the regular DOCSIS cable modem standards in the US. When you go off to BuyMore to buy a cable modem, they actually advertise (1) that they're DOCSISx and (2) that they're compatable with Comcast in your area. Using "the list" is like walking into, uh, BuyMore, looking at a DVD player, seeing it actually has a picture of a DVD of The Matrix on it, and then going on to Warner Bro's site to see if it's on an official list of DVD players that play The Matrix.

Here's what happened when I signed up for Comcast service. I went online, I selected the service I wanted, I was asked if I wanted to rent their modem, I declined, and then I set up an install date. I then went to Best Buy and bought an off-the-shelf Zyxel modem. On the install date, the installer ran the wire, plugged everything in, verified I had a connection, wasn't sure if it would work as it wasn't on his list but tried it anyway (no, he didn't need convincing or anything, he just hadn't heard of the modem, though he looked less unsure when he saw the magic "DOCSIS3" words on the box and told me I'd gotten a pretty good modem in that case), sent the MAC address to Comcast, and that was pretty much it. Other than the usual account misset-up snafu, which had nothing to do with my selection of modem and was never blamed on the modem, everything when smoothly.

You guys are inventing conspiracies that do not exist. Comcast doesn't force anyone to use their routers. The set-up of xfinitywifi is not a threat to your security or bandwidth. It is useful (and I've made use of it) to have access to Wifi away from home.

At best, some of you may have had some pushy salespeople. Pushy salespeople suck. Comcast sucks for using pushy salespeople. But their Internet service, salespeople aside, is great, and xfinitywifi is a good idea, regardless of how bad their sales department is.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this Comcast competitor you speak of? In 90+% of their service areas, this phrase has no meaning.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Anonymous Coward]

And if there is no alternative to switch to because capitalist company has bought influence with the capitalist government?

Shove your capitalism fantasies in your Ayn-us.

This won't go anywhere....

[Anonymous Coward]

...because it's in the fine print that they do it and how you can go turn it off.

Is it secure ?

[terminal.dk]

Is it secure ? When danish telecom did the same, they ended up having to get Cisco to fix router errors, and after that they had issues with IPv6 which was not properly filtered, giving access to the home network.

Numion speed test

[Futurepower(R)]

I like the Numion speed test. It measure the actual data delivery speed by downloading from numerous web sites. That real speed is very different from the speed Comcast advertises.

Unfortunately, Numion requires Java.

Re:Numion speed test

[cwsumner]

... It measure the actual data delivery speed by downloading from numerous web sites. ...

That is including the delays caused by the website server. If that is what you want to know, that's fine. But it is not the same thing.

In reality, most slow downs are due to the websites, not the ISP. But what we are talking about here is the different ISPs. 8-)

As does Portugal

[ragsgen]

Same here in Portugal. All service providers do this. Extremely useful when traveling, and getting "free" wifi access using ur home account. Not sure if that have opt out options.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Shados]

"Unfortunately" (for this particular scenario, as its quite nice fore most purpose), I live in a loft where the walls are lined with windows.27 windows, roughly 35x70~ each, one next to each other all around. Blocking the walls won't help much :)

Re:I'm perferctly willing to share my net w/strang

[Drethon]

I'm waiting for cellular service and television to die and be consumed by the internet. Then all we have is internet providers with everything else being an internet service. Probably wont happen for a while but it seems like a way to cut out a few middle men.

SFR (France) does this also

[zwarte piet]

but turning it off is dead easy. It's an option in the modem menu. Kinda pointless anyway when you live in the middle of nowhere. Nobody's ever going to use the public thing.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Anonymous Coward]

America has that mindset because in order to get civil laws enforced, you have to pay a lawyer.

In my countries, you just inform the relevant government that Company X is breaking the law, and they take care of it, because laws are there to protect everyone, not just those who pay.

And when the police kick in the door...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a friend of a friend here in the Indianapolis area that had his home searched, and his computer equipment seized, becasue someone was surfing kidee porn on his open wifi router. How does Comcast protect its users from liabilty for what is done over this second channel?

Re:And when the police kick in the door...

[zwarte piet]

The public networks has a different ip address so not gonna happen. And open network=asking for it.

Wireless Congestion

[nehumanuscrede]

What their program WILL do is flood entire areas with a lot of wireless signals, likely none of which are optimized to prevent interference with each other.

Unless the folks planning the roll outs are doing site surveys to determine what channels are being used and modifying each unit accordingly, you're going to have an awful lot of channel overlap and the whole wireless experience is going to be crap-tastic.

I will admit that -some- wireless access points ( like Cisco Aironet ) has the ability to scan the spectrum periodically and change channels to the least congested one. Though in the most heavily congested areas where Comcast has installed a lot of these units, I don't believe even that will help much.

If you take a nickel from someone. . .

[nehumanuscrede]

once a month, no one really cares.

If you take a nickel from $number_of_Comcast_subscribers people every month, then it becomes significant.

The idea is fine, but they're just being cheap and not wanting to fund the infrastructure. Then again, were they to build their own, they'll just up the costs to the consumer to pay for it. So either way, we'll likely end up paying for it.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[nehumanuscrede]

Opposite experience for me.

The monthly rate for cable modem lease jumped to $10 / month so I finally broke down and bought one. I pulled up the list they maintain on their site and started looking at reviews. Settled on a Motorola SB6121. ( My net speeds are 50 / 5 )

Called up Comcast and spoke with their support line folks. Told them I had purchased my own modem and I would like to have it activated. I read off the MAC address for the new unit to her, then hooked it up. She sent the activation signal down and my internet was up and running a few moments later.

To top it off, she didn't leave the line until I was satisfied the speeds were as expected. I bounced the connection against a few different sites to check them and we were good to go. Whole call lasted maybe fifteen minutes. I returned the Comcast cable modem to one of their stores the same day.

No issues since.

Re:Same setup as BT have in the UK - what's the BF

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear major dumbass. You have one ADSL line that feeds into that BT Homehub. You bought the "upto 20 Mbps" package (maybe with limited or 40GB unlimited bandwidth). In reality you're only getting a third of advertise speed (7Mbps?). When one SSID in the Homehub is for people living in your house, and a secondary SSID is for Hotspot users (terrorists and pedofiles?), how is this 7Mbps speed split between them and you? What does this mean to data usage? Did you know that inside the Homehub is a tiny CPU which does the network sharing and other routing jobs? This is now under more pressure because of the extra users. Please try to think beyond the tip of your nose for once in a while

SIDENOTE: how are clients authenticated

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Im forced to use Comcast based on lack of options where I live. I connected my iPhone (iOS8) to xfinitywifi once to download a podcast.. Later I reset all network connection info on the phone which should have lost all authentication info. On my home net, i had to re-authenticate. But, for some reason, I haven't had to re-auth on xfinitywifi.

Do they do authentication based on some client info? MAC addr? Some Passpoint auth? Even if I just did password auth without remembering, I do know I haven't done any time recently, and I thought you had to re-authenticate daily, which I'm 100% sure I have not.

I don't have Business Class, but I do have my own modem and Wifi router. Router is free from TMobile (technically not mine but a loan for the life of my relationship with TMobile). I sprung for a modem with VOIP abilities but since dropped phone service, or my modem would have been even cheaper. Look for DOCSIS3 compatible, if you're stuck with Comcast as i am.

profit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Post above says that "Comcast is "exploiting them for profit" by using their home router as part of a nationwide network of public hotspots." But I thought the WIFI hotspot is free and open to the public? I must be missing something.

Re:Same setup as BT have in the UK - what's the BF

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on your router, there are options to run a virtual network for guests. I used to do this for visiting relatives.

Re:Suing over something that can easily be changed

[Anonymous Coward]

Why sue?

THIS IS AMERICA!

I can sue anyone I want, and I should receive 10 million in damages!!!!!

Problem: DSL Reports speed test. Recommend?

[Futurepower(R)]

Thanks for the tip! I was using an i7-3770, which is not much different.

What speed test do you recommend? Everyone needs a speed test that measures data delivery speed, not raw line speed.

Re:Problem: DSL Reports speed test. Recommend?

[PIBM]

In my case I own servers at different locations. I can test my speed by downloading random and compressed data from them.

same as BTFON

[Anonymous Coward]

BT in the UK do this to. It's an opt-out rather than opt-in and I found it incredibly tedious to turn it off (or find out how to turn it off), I doubt most other users are even aware of this.

Suing over something that can easily be changed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure you pay attention to what they are doing, they took my fully functioning and faster Surfboard 6121 and replaced it with their WIFi modem (left the surf board powered off next to it) so that I could pay $8/month to act as one of their WIFI hotspots. Really shady practice!!!

Comcast Business Class

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Comcast, that's why.

putting costs onto customers ...?

[micahraleigh]

Pushing costs onto the customers ...?

So, like when you order a cheeseburger at McDonald's you're not implicitly paying for the lights to be on?

Tin foil hat solution?

[Schrockwell]

That's kind of what I was thinking. Or, if it has exposed antennas, just terminate them in a 50 ohm dummy load.

Fuck Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

They are one of the worst companies that exist. I am glad that starting last year I finally have an alternative for home broadband. I dumped them and will never look back. Fuck Comcast!

What about the benefits?

[Shirley Marquez]

Just about all the discussion here has been focused on the costs being pushed onto customers. But many Comcast customers also use those WiFi hotspots when they travel, and you only get full access to them if you are a customer. I suspect that for most people, the imposed costs of running the hotspot are less than the value they receive from being able to use other people's hotspots.

The possible exception: people who live near high traffic areas. They might find that a lot of their bandwidth is being consumed by people sitting in a nearby coffee shop or park. Comcast could at least partially fix that by not counting data for the hotspot as part of the speed limit of your service tier, but if you start running up against the speed limit of your cable modem or if the upstream bandwidth on your cable segment saturates because of heavy shared use that doesn't help.

I got a Comcast router without radio

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast tried to pull this on me. I told them that for security reasons I absolutely could not have a radio on my router. If they insisted, I would change providers. We had to go into a Comcast store to get a router without a radio. But we got one.

Public wifi hotspot means no password

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt comcast is that forward thinking, generous, interesting, ambitious or useful.

Article should read. Comcast sells your internet out, probably bills you for it too. Thinks it owns your ass.

Someday there'll be a large corporation that encourages you to share freely, sadly that day isn't here yet.