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Virgin Media To Base a Public Wi-Fi Net On Paying Customers' Routers
An anonymous reader writes with a story that Virgin Media "announced this month its plans to roll out a free public WiFi network this autumn, using subscribers' personal routers and existing infrastructure to distribute the service across UK cities." And while regular customers' routers are to be the basis of the new network, the publicly viewable overlay would operate over "a completely separate connection," and the company claims subscribers' performance will not be hindered. Why, then, would customers bother to pay? For one thing, because the free version is slow: 0.5Mbps, vs. 10Mbps for Virgin's customers.
I'm a virgin media customer. You can opt out, in which case you can't use the free wifi access.
Maybe try reading the article
"For those Virgin Media subscribers unhappy with the prospect of sharing their network connection, the company is offering an opt-out setting. Enabling this option however will, quite rightly, prohibit the subscriber from accessing other free WiFi spots – share and share alike etc."
So it works exactly like BT's fon service then. Nothing to see here.
Performance is bad enough already, and I'm meant to get 60mbps.
60 mbps? I'm sure it's not as bad as all that.
There is indeed an opt-out, described about halfway down TFA. If you opt out, then you don't get the subscriber benefit of the faster connection when accessing via other people's routers. BT have had a similar system in place for a couple of years now.
I'm a Virgin Media subscriber and I'll be opting out. So long as the opt-out remains in place, however, I won't be getting too upset about this.
Free, a french ISP known to be highly disruptive to its competitors did this with its routers.
The hotspot is completely separated from the home network (different IP), on a lower priority, so it won't affect you. This hotspot is only available to Free customers that didn't chose to opt out. For me, that's fair.
Note that due to the way traffic is prioritized, the public hotspot becomes slow to the point of being unusable if the subscriber uses his connection intensively.
I don't want passers by being able to connect to my home router with the hope that virgin's software is secure enough to maintain a distinction between private and public networks.
I don't generally mind the idea in principle, but as you say, "is their security really that good?"
Honestly, the history of private companies having great security... sucks...
Well, I would think it depends on how they do it - in Switzerland, Cablecom does the same - as a subscriber you get one of their routers, and apart from your own connection (which you get at the full advertised speed), there is another channel using which they turn your modem into a "free" wifi hotspot.
The catch in this case comes with the word "free" - it is free to their paying subscribers: i.e. at home I have my own connection, but everywherelse in Switzerland, within wifi distance from any of their other customer's cable routers, I can access the internet through wifi at no extra cost.
Non-subscribers do not get access to this wifi...
In this case, my "reason to pay" them is for the (better) access I have for myself at home but it also includes the convenience of having free wifi across many places in Switzerland...
If you don't have your own router/firewall between your LAN and Comcast's (or anyone else's) cable modem than you are vulnerable.
Want a quick demonstration? Call Comcast with an issue with their builtin router and watch as they are able to reset the passwords on the device and verify that all of the devices on the LAN are able to connect to it.
I kept the Xfinity wireless enabled. I use my own WiFi on my own firewall/router and see the potential of using the WiFi hotspots while traveling as greater than any imagined threats on my LAN.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
With the BT one, if you enable it on their router and then swap for your own router, your access remains. Sssshhhh
I'm all for jumping on the good, old-fashioned Comcast hate train when it's deserved (like my increasingly saturated 105M cable connection that struggles to provide 50-60 during peak periods), but please explain to me how someone running the Xfinity hotspot on their router makes them have a "really vulnerable wifi connection"?
There are two separate networks being broadcast from the access point. One, which connects to the customer's LAN, is available for the owner to use at full speed. The other, which does not connect to the internal LAN, only to the outside world, and is rate limited to ensure full performance of the customer's provisioned speed and is available to outside users. Outside users must authenticate using their Xfinity credentials to connect. These credentials are logged, so if any nefarious activity originates from the connection it will be attributed to it's rightful owner.
The internal network is still password protected (well, as protected as any wireless network can be, I suppose) so no one will be connecting to your private network.
I agree that the Xfinity hotspot should be opt-in because it uses electricity and adds extra RF to what is usually an already noisy spectrum band, but this in no way, shape, or form, makes your wifi connection "really vulnerable". No more vulnerable that wifi already is, anyway. Stop fear-mongering.
Have you considered how much you'd save by just buying your own modem? I think it pays off after 10 months. Maybe more for a nicer modem.
Also, it doesn't hurt to call the loyalty dept. and simply ask if they have any promotions. My DVR promotions (dropped to $10/month) run out late next month. I don't think they have those anymore. With the recent price increase in my area, been trying to switch some DVRs to Tivo.
* If I own a router, I should have say as to who can access it. I think if the ISP is going to provide public access via a router/AP, they need to own it or compensate the owner.
* If I provide electricity to power ISP infrastructure, I need to be compensated for that.
My guess is that they do own it and definitely control it and are probably leasing it to the customer.
It's pretty much impossible to do it on a third party router they don't own and control.
And they are compensating the customer via free service. If you opt out then you can't use the free wifi of other customers.
My ISP's modem/router does this so I just plugged in my own router and grounded their antenna inside a tinfoil faraday cage. Screw the MBAs working at my ISP.
Honestly, the history of private companies having great security... sucks...
So.. same as government then..
I may be wrong, but what it looks like to me is: if you're a Virgin customer and you don't opt out you get to use the network at 10Mbps. If you're not a virgin customer or you opt out (because really, how are they going to be able to tell that random mobile device X belongs to an opted-out virgin user and not a random member of the public?) you're limited to the 0.5Mbps rate.
Yes, and like "Free (Illiad)" in France.
So you think that the Xfinity router without this sharing functionality has no vulnerabilities that can be exploited. Interesting.
Unfortunately you're not allowed to use your own router on VM's network.
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
If you can't turn it off, user your own WiFi router and enclose theirs in a large metal box so it doesn't use up spectrum. Verify there is enough shielded vents so it doesn't run hot.
You can place the Virgin Superhub (sic) into modem only mode and then attach your own router to it. This disables the wifi part of the Superhub as far as I can tell, so I'm not sure how this will affect their roll out.
Do you really think they are going to share your network retard? Clearly any user on the WiFi network will have their own IP address.
Even if they have a separate IP address the question is will the ISP records indicate that it was assigned to your router? If they do how confident are you that the police will be aware of the distinction between the public and private IP addresses and understand that the activity had nothing to do with you? In fact, even if they are aware of the difference, they may still want to investigate you in case it was you connecting to the public side of your WiFi so the activity was not directly linked back to you.
To my knowledge, FON was the first to provide this kind of service many years ago, and since then many ISPs in many countries have done so. Here in France, all major ISPs provide this kind of service, and I assume it is the same in other countries. We would have heard about it for long if there was any security problem associated. So I wonder why this even makes a Slashdot news, and please, please, stop make FUD about this. It reminds of 19e century people fearing driving more than 25 km/h and others being doubtful about the Edison phonograph.