1 In 3 Home Routers Will Be Used As Public Wi-Fi Hotspots By 2017

An anonymous reader writes: Juniper Research predicts that at least 1 in 3 home routers will be used as public Wi-Fi hotspots by 2017, and that the total installed base of such dual-use routers will reach 366 million globally by the end of 2020. Major broadband operators such as BT, UPC and Virgin Media in Europe and several of the biggest cable TV operators in the U.S. such as Comcast and Cablevision have adopted the homespot model as a low-cost way of rapidly expanding their domestic Wi-Fi coverage.

Comments

If they're unpatched Juniper routers...

[Anonymous Coward]

they already are?

I saw it coming

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but the first time I saw one of these ADSL modem/802.11 access-point boxes from AT&T with all kinds of dark settings about second-channel 802.11 access that I thought, "sumbitch--they want to turn these into access points for their customers to roam". Whenever I see one of these, I work to disable that second-channel function.

I rather have my own equipment, thank you. I have a DOCSYS 3 cable modem and a separate router box. Sometimes (generally less than once a month) I enable the 802.11 on that router--and turn it off once I don't need it any more.

Re: I saw it coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone give this man $1 for seeing it coming.
Also, DOCSIS*

Re: I saw it coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, DOCSIS*

Maybe he meant Data Over Cable Service Ynterface Specification.

Re:I saw it coming

[Racemaniac]

Why disable it??
My ISP router is like that, and if you enable the public hotspot on yours, you can use those of others too (which i find incredibly useful :) ).
And for security: all that router is allowed to do is have my decent router in its DMZ, and from there on i form my own network where i know exactly what devices i'm using :).

Re:I saw it coming

[joaommp]

but if I don't use on the others, why should *I* be paying for the electricity to serve other people?

Re:I saw it coming

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Oh noes, you can pay for Internet but you cannot pay 10 cents per month to help other people!

Re:I saw it coming

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you pay for the lowest bandwidth to get internet service, but then connect to your own hotspot or someone else's that is set to a higher bandwidth speed for public use and thus save money. Also you can have one device on your ISP service with some of the traffic being rerouted through gear to your own hotspot and get increased bandwidth speed by sharing two connections to the ISP at the same time!

Re:I saw it coming

[joaommp]

10 cents per month? you must never have paid an electricity bill

Re:I saw it coming

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm all for charitably providing access, given the trivial cost. What rubs me very, very, much the wrong way is being shoved(with varying degrees of force) into providing uncompensated location and power for my friendly local ISP oligopoly.

Aside from being as little a matter of choice as they can make it, you'll notice that these secondary hotspots aren't being run as a public service; but with captive portals and subscriber sign-ins.

I have, and do, offer an open wifi channel(QoS ranked below anything I want to do, obviously); but I'll be damned if I get to pay for infrastructure that my ISP is too cheap to build out themselves.

Re:I saw it coming

[blackomegax]

You must never have done math. wifi chips consume 100-200 milliwatts, max, and that's under load. Idle is much lower. That's less than 10 cents a month, full tilt.

Re:I saw it coming

[Golddess]

My current electricity cost is about 14 cents per kWh.
My router draws 1.6 amps at 10 volts, for 16 watts of power.
Plugging those numbers into this calculator gives me a max monthly operating cost of about $1.64, or a yearly operating cost of less than $20. And that assumes that it is drawing the max amount of power 24/7.

10 cents per month is probably still under-estimating the actual average cost, and you certainly have the right to bitch about having to pay any amount, but I'm really curious as to why you made the accusation that you did.

Re:I saw it coming

[joaommp]

I'm sorry, what accusation?

Re: I saw it coming

[FatdogHaiku]

Stop making fun of Mr. Chekov!

Re:I saw it coming

[Anonymous Coward]

>And for security: all that router is allowed to do is have my decent router in its DMZ, and from there on i form my own network where i know exactly what devices i'm using :).

You assume it's not a bug-filled piece of shit and that all the DMZ and isolation functions actually work.

That's a very stupid thing to do.

Re:I saw it coming

[zlives]

ditto

Re:I saw it coming

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

The accusation that I never paid an electricity bill. I do, every month.

And Golddess's math assumes the full cost of running the wireless router while my argument was about the extra cost of having the secondary part of the router enabled. And his/her router takes an awful lot of power, to be honest. The Apple Airport Express (PDF) requires a maximum of 2.2 watts, which is 7.27 times less power, or about 0.23 cents per month for the whole router running at maximum capacity.

Re:I saw it coming

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the ISPs wont shove the service down our throat. There will be some kind of incentive. What they'll do is over the next couple of years increase broadband price to double what you pay now, and then when they come out with this service, they will say, hey those of you opt in will get 50% discount off your bill.

Re:I saw it coming

[joaommp]

I did not accuse. I speculated.

Re:I saw it coming

[Anonymous Coward]

The way this has been done in Europe, is for the public wi-fi to be tunnelled over VPN direct to the ISP's core network. Not only that, the public wi-fi goes to a captive portal which requires some form of authentication.

Someone running a TOR exit node, or running torrents on the public wi-fi SSID, would have an external IP address which would linked directly to them by their login details.

As it's been rolled out by BT in the UK, if you enable the public Wi-fi function, your ISP login-details will work to allow you to log in free-of-charge to other public wi-fi spots. If you opt-out of public wi-fi hosting, you will lose the free log-in option, and only have a paid subscription option of using the ad-hoc hosted public wi-fi network.

Re:I saw it coming

[mikael]

BT are doing something similar with residental wi-fi. If someone nearby is a BT customer, then their wifi provides a pay-as-you-go wifi zone where anyone can connect to that router, provide either their BT account number or just make a payment to connect for a few hours. Something on range of £25/week, £10/day.

The only problems? It may be the only wifii free-zone connection point within range, and that owner at any time may decide to switch their router off if they see activity when they are not using their PC. So then you have been ripped off by whatever amount of money you paid.

Re:I saw it coming

[edtice1559]

But it's not uncompensated access. The principle of these systems is reciprocal. Company XYZ adds a second-channel to the WiFi access points and all of their customers can use them. So if you are across town and need to access the Internet, you can just connect. The compensation is in the form of you getting to use the other APs. Now we could argue that it should be opt-in, but it's not uncompensated. In fact, I'm surprised they don't make it op-in as most people would do so with glee.

Re:I saw it coming

[edtice1559]

Those who opt-in will be allowed to use all of the APs that are part of the service. Those who don't can pay for 3G/4G when they're not at home.

Re:I saw it coming

[edtice1559]

The ISPs are good enough at network management that they can limit your bandwidth when connecting to other APs. When you buy a tier of service whether via Fiber, DSL, et cetera, you get the exact same physical connection regardless of tier. I know we talk about "fatter pipes" but the telcos run the same exact strand of fiber to your house regardless of the bandwidth you purchase. And your equipment is capable of higher speeds. They just limit you based on what you pay. So you could have the lowest tier service and waiting for your downloads for a week while somebody else could connect to your AP and get blistering speeds since they have authenticated as a higher tier customer.

Re: I saw it coming

[tnk1]

That would be DOCSWS.

In Russia, we call them "winterfaces"!

Re:I saw it coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since you're all about giving it away, I could also use 10 cents of yours per month too. It will probably be easier if you set it on auto-pay, just to make sure you don't miss a payment.

Re:I saw it coming

[tnk1]

Compensation depends on what you're getting out of it, and it should be fairly negotiated. This is being done without anyone's explicit permission, and that is wrong if the person being provided this service would instead prefer to save the money or simply not have to deal with their equipment operating in that mode.

Having your equipment become a public access point turns your equipment into something that can be used by anyone. This can have the effect of causing the government to become interested in your access point.

What happens when the "firewall" between your private network and the public network is badly designed or faulty and someone discovers the vulnerability?

Do I have to accept some technician at my house to "fix" my equipment if the only thing broken on it is that part of the equipment? How would that work if it broke and I didn't care to fix it? Would I now be denied access to the other APs and be charged for service if I didn't let them fix it on their own schedule at my personal inconvenience?

Yeah, it's not a huge inconvenience, but when inconveniences can be forced on you without your specific permission, they start to add up.

Re:I saw it coming

[mark-t]

Except It's not *YOUR* IP address, even if it using one that it gets from your router. Your ISP can probably tell the difference between IP's that it gives to people that are connecting to your router as a hotspot and the IP that it gave you, specifically.

Where I live, at least, it requires submitting subscriber information once (per device you own) to even be able to connect to such hotspots, so whatever IP address you get still corresponds with a specific subscriber, regardless of which home modem one might be connecting to.

And really, if you can even afford broadband internet service in the first place you can probably afford the additional electricity it costs for other people to use it... we're talking about maybe a few bucks a year, at most.

Re: I saw it coming

[Anonymous Coward]

and in soviet russia, winterfaces call you

Re:I saw it coming

[KGIII]

Back home, I have DSL. Cable is not an option. Because DSL uses the phone lines, the company is obligated to reasonably lease (and they do - we've an aggressive PUC) lines to others. I can get DSL service from any company, anywhere on the globe, that is willing to provide service. I kind of like that.

That said, does it count as a wi-fi hotspot if I have guest access enabled? I do. They are not allowed access to anything other than the internet. They do not get LAN access. However, I don't actually have any neighbors or anything - the nearest village is 24 miles away from my house. I do have a neighboring farm, they're the closest too me, and it's about a mile away by road or about a half mile by woods.

I guess I'm a public hotspot provider. Yay! Does this get me carrier protections or am I still liable for activity on my network? How about for civil offenses?

Then again, my ISP doesn't really seem to give two shits how much I download, upload, or how many torrents I keep active. Down here, in Florida, I've got cable. I get a full 50 Mb/sec and I don't actually need or use all that bandwidth. I'm quite content with my paltry 14-15 Mb/sec at home. I'm not only content with it - it's more than I need. It's fast enough that I'd actually like to reduce the download speed and increase the upload speed. Alas, nobody seems to offer it.

Re:I saw it coming

[drakaan]

That kind of discount would be attractive, if the rate never changed (yeah, right). My main worry (and the reason I wouldn't sign up period) is that I have zero control over who connects, zero knowledge of how the device provides the service, and zero ability to ensure that it won't have adverse effects on either my service or devices on my network.

Re:I saw it coming

[edtice1559]

I see your point and I even mentioned that I would prefer to see this (and most everything else) be opt-in. That being said, I'm also sympathetic to the providers here. Most people reading this are capable of setting up their own network and managing it to their needs. However, the vast majority of customers aren't able to do this and will end up with poorly implemented, insecure setups if they do it themselves. And when something doesn't work, their going to call the ISP support who has to ask them to check that the computer is plugged in. There is nothing here preventing you from increasing the security of your network. You could add your own wireless access point in addition to the one provided by the ISP and use that SSID. This is something that provides a huge benefit to the vast majority of customers so I can see them wanting to roll it out aggressively. I would certainly opt in to this. As far as security, all of my important data goes over VPN. Assuming that your setup is more secure may actually be a fallacy. Even if, day one, it is more secure, you're now in the business of maintaining that security. That's a lot of overhead to swallow. When everybody has the same setup, the effort is amortized. It does mean that a security defect will be wide-spread. But again if you have any important data, the security features of your AP should be only a small part of your strategy. I really thin that most of the negativity here is the fact that this is opt-out and, in general, most of us here hate opt-out.

Conflicting goals

[CrankyOldEngineer]

How will ISPs help enforce copyright laws if they don't know who is using your router?

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a BT customer (well, a relative of one...), to use the hotspot, you must log in with your account details.

The router has two networks and two IP addresses, so the ISP knows exactly who is surfing what.

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll just harass you anyway. Whaddya gonna do? Call the cops?

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

You sign in upon connection. They already have you do that for public WiFi hotspots.

No issue here.

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Orlando Florida Brighthouse automatically sets up their customer cable modem with a separate public wifi hotspot . The wifi user has to pay for access. The customer hosting the hotspot pays for the electricty and often is not even aware of it. The host has to call Brighthouse to turn it off.

Re:Conflicting goals

[jnork]

...And two different bandwidth allocations?

Re:Conflicting goals

[TWX]

If they set it up right, then yes, their usage won't count against your plan.

Unfortunately they don't have a history of setting it up right. Plus, even if it doesn't count against your counters, the actual connection is only so fast, so if someone else is using then available bandwidth for you will decrease.

I too run my own equipment and will for as long as possible. If it comes down to having to use their equipment, well, that's what carefully wrapped chicken wire is for.

Re:Conflicting goals

[i.r.id10t]

and ip addresses, and actual uplink cables...

Re: Conflicting goals

[bill_mcgonigle]

A person is not an IP. If everybody puts up a guest network, we're done with this problem. Classic Prisoner's Dilemma though - I put one up but most of the commenters here are too chicken. I've got a VLAN for "Guest" so I can have AP's around the property, OpenWRT bridges an SSID to VLAN admirably, and pfSense [minimally] filters and shapes traffic effectively. I'm considering dropping off that traffic on a buck-a-month VPS over OpenVPN but haven't had the need yet (rural living).

Re:Conflicting goals

[thegarbz]

You're assuming too much.

Between rollouts of carrier grade NAT, IPv6, and gateways which assign themselves multiple IP addresses for multiple subnetworks on different SSIDs, they can most definitely track upstream if the data is going to YOUR network, or THEIR public one.

I capitalised the YOUR and THEIR bit because the differences is that they are in control of the configuration of the modem. You plug it in and it will setup the way they want it to.

Re:Conflicting goals

[thegarbz]

Have you heard of QoS?

Re:Conflicting goals

[OrangeTide]

Bingo. The ISPs don't care who takes the heat, as long as they ISPs themselves aren't held liable for infringement.

Re:Conflicting goals

[Lazere]

Hahahahahaha no...

Re:Conflicting goals

[DigitalSorceress]

Indeed - if they ever made me use their modem/router, I'd take off the antennas and wrap it in tinfoil... then put in my own router as if it were "my pc" - double NAT would suck but it'd keep the "free access point" from working.

Re:Conflicting goals

[misosoup7]

Or just don't rent a modem from your ISP. By your own modem (they're usually less than $100), so at the $10 per month rental price, you'll make it back in a year. Also since it's your own modem, there doesn't need to be the public hotspot. I also would recommend not getting the modem router combos. They usually don't have that great of performance and are much less configurable.

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would double NAT suck? I've been running with triple NAT for over a decade. Call me paranoid but 3 NAT routers from 3 different vendors - protecting my house from the Internet as well as protecting my "important" stuff from the rest of my house.

Re: Conflicting goals

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Has nothing to do with being "chicken" and everything to do with being selfish in my case. I'm paying for this bandwidth, and I'm not giving any of it away. It's for me.

A for your guest network I wouldn't use your public access point, because I don't know or trust you anyhow.

Yes I could go to those lengths that you did to make things low impact, but why the fuck would I?

Re:Conflicting goals

[zarmanto]

How will ISPs help enforce copyright laws if they don't know who is using your router?

Wouldn't that be a problem when your neighbor has child pr0n on his box?

These are both misunderstandings based upon Juniper's misuse of the term "public wifi hotspot". These hotspots are not usually public, strictly speaking; they are only accessible to other customers of the internet provider, and each of those users have to log into the hotspot with their carrier provided account in order to use it. Thus, their network activity can (theoretically) be tracked back to them, based upon their login credentials.

Another concern often voiced is the notion of random people taking up all of your bandwidth: This is addressed by the simple fact that the providers are all perfectly capable of serving significantly more bandwidth then the (insert-your bandwidth limit here) that you're paying for. However, what that doesn't address is collisions and QoS measures... so one or more customers of your provider, all connecting through your router for some weird reason, (such as a Superbowl party at your neighbor's house, for example) could theoretically establish so many simultaneous connections, as to make it seem like they've saturated all of your bandwidth... when really, they've just maxed out the thread count on the router. The solution to this scenario is not entirely intuitive -- but there is indeed a solution:

First, don't assume that you can trust the configuration software on the provider's router. If they've decided that they want to use their hardware as a hotspot, they'll eventually figure out how to leave "public" access turned on, even if you attempt to turn wifi off entirely. So instead, just disconnect the wifi antenna from the provider's router. If the antenna is internal or otherwise cannot be physically disconnected, then just Faraday cage the heck out of that thing, with multiple layers of heavy duty aluminum foil and cardboard. Once you've verified that no wireless signals can reach the provider's router, you can safely configure (and properly secure) your own personal router, on the inside of your network.

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Replace your antennas with SMA dummy loads. No tinfoil required.

Re: Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

You would if you cared about the Person==IP problem. You'd shape the traffic so you don't notice if you care to use all of your bandwidth when you want it. Setting up a traffic-shaper takes five minutes on most routers, so if you don't you probably don't care about the social problem or are too chicken to participate in the solution.

Most people don't know enough to worry about using open WiFi, but those who do run a VPN over them.

I'll leave alone the "why would I ever do something nice for others?" part.

Re:Conflicting goals

[TimSSG]

Replace your antennas with SMA dummy loads. No tinfoil required.

Tinfoil is always required; remember Aluminum foil is no substitute for real tinfoil. j/k Tim S. PS: Join the TFHB (Tin foil hat brigade) on http://bar.baen.com/ and read free Sci-Fi from the Slash Pile. Membership in the TFHB not required to read free Sci-Fi.

Re:Conflicting goals

[CastrTroy]

I've already set up the router/modem that my provider gave me like this. Instead of giving me a dumb cable modem, they gave me a modem/wireless router combo unit. The first thing I did was reconfigure the box to act as dumb bridge and used my own wireless router for the boxes in my house to connect to. The router they gave me didn't have sufficient capabilities to set up the QOS properly for my VOIP provider.

Re:Conflicting goals

[garyok]

Also speaking as a BT customer with Infinity 2, I can ditch their router and plug in my own as long as it can do PPPoE. All my bits are belong to me.

Re:Conflicting goals

[GrumpySteen]

Call me paranoid but 3 NAT routers from 3 different vendors

Oh, I won't call you paranoid. What I will do is call you "full of shit"

Every time something like this comes up, there's always some idiot posting his improbably ridiculous daydream of an 'ultimate' system that solves all the problems.

What's the point? As an AC, you're not even getting imaginary internet points.

You might impress some other idiots, but anyone with half a clue dismisses these kinds of posts out of hand because we've seen them an endless parade of them.

What, exactly, do you hope to gain by posting this ridiculous crap?

Re:Conflicting goals

[pak9rabid]

Or just don't rent a modem from your ISP

That's not always an option: see: AT&T U-Verse and Google Fiber

Re:Conflicting goals

[pak9rabid]

This is why I stick with TWC (even though Google Fiber is available in my area). They're still dumb enough to let me either a.) set their provided router into bridged mode, or b.) (what I do) provide your own device.

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

What's ridiculous about it?

Re: Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

here they added the hotspots for xfinity, but they also upgraded my internet speed from the 25 I am paying for to 60 for no extra charge. so bandwidth is not a concern. illegal activities on my line are still a concern though. what if a teenager next door sets up a music sharing service?

Re:Conflicting goals

[mikael]

A long time ago, I was job hunting around Christmas back in the 1990's. Sending off my resume off to all sorts of places. For some strange mystical reason, our cable conduit suddenly became "flooded" and all telephone connections for that last week of work before the holiday were down. Missed a couple of job offers. After that I make it a priority to have multiple communication methods (landline, mobile, spare SIM cards).

Re:Conflicting goals

[faedle]

I know at one cable company the way the "public" WiFi works it uses a separate DOCSIS stream, so it won't necessarily ever be "felt" by the customer. Now, I guess it will in aggregate (there's only so much pipe), but it is carried by a different stream than yours and has lower QoS priority, so in theory it shouldn't cause any issues to the subscriber.

That being said, I have no idea who has set up the hotspot called "XFINITY" in my neighborhood with a fake Comcast splash page that captures names and passwords and then has no Internet route out (because it's a battery operated TP-LINK router)... no idea at all.

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

So you literally need to make a tinfoil hat for your router. Way ahead of you.

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

The easy fix is not to use ISP provided routers unless you have no alternative. ( They're sh*t anyway )

Comcast ( for example ) has to support 3rd party Cable Modems ( especially since using theirs is now a $10 / month fee ) so go buy one.
Buy your own flavor of router and / or wireless AP to tie to it and you're done.

No more worries about public hotspots originating from your address.

Re: Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

The uverse router att provides has better range and connectivity than the $250 dollar netgear router I was using. It has 4/5 bars everywhere in my 3-story house. The netgear was 1/2 in the far corners and a dead spot in one place.

Re:Conflicting goals

[hairyfeet]

And YOU sir are assuming cops will go to the extra trouble of finding out if it was on the public or private line instead of kicking down the door because that is where they think somebody surfing CP is. As we have seen in the past cops, hell even feds, really throw due diligence out the window when it comes to anything to do with CP, see the fed CP server that didn't capture referrers (making it perfect for scumbags to use as a nastier version of a rickroll) or the guy in FLA that the state went after for 2 years when anybody who spent a whole 2 minutes looking at the logs would have clearly seen the laptop his company handed him had been pre-pwned by a C&C that was making thousands of connections a minute and using him as a relay.

As we have seen in America from the red scare to terrorism, from the satanic cult panic of the 80s to charging kids with selfies for producing CP, once we have one of our panics going on logic and the rule of law are pretty much the first things to go. So if YOU want to trust your local, state, and federal police forces to be wise, logical, completely reasonable, and trustworthy? That is YOUR choice. I personally don't have any intentions of betting my life on whether or not they will show common sense, much less understand the difference between public and private networks, so there won't be any public hotspots in my home, thanks anyway.

Re:Conflicting goals

[sociocapitalist]

How will ISPs help enforce copyright laws if they don't know who is using your router?

Presumably there's still a username / password login so that only customers of that ISP can use the service.

Re:Conflicting goals

[thegarbz]

And YOU sir are assuming cops will go to the extra trouble of finding out if it was on the public or private line instead of kicking down the door because that is where they think somebody surfing CP is

Trouble? You're assuming cops do any work rather than just send a request to the ISP who pull it from their logs and call it a day. IP addresses aren't physical addresses. The ISP provides those as it is, nothing changes for the end users (end users being cops who put through a request for information), then they'll come and kick your door in.

Re:Conflicting goals

[houghi]

The majority of users will never go that far. They rent/buy the router from the ISP and somewhere in the contract sign up for them to be allowed to do whatever they desire.

So if you are going to do such a thing, first go over the fine print. Also be sure that you not want to use the service anywhere else, as that would make you a hypocrite.

I just bought my own modem/router, connected it and there is no way they can get access in any legal way. It also means I have no access anywhere else and I am ok with that.

Re:Conflicting goals

[zarmanto]

The majority of users will never go that far. ...

By the simple act of reading Slashdot, you've already placed yourself in the minority of users who are more likely to go that far. Know your audience; I specifically tailored my comment to this audience. But let's come back around to that at the end. First, I'd like to address this:

... So if you are going to do such a thing, first go over the fine print. Also be sure that you not want to use the service anywhere else, as that would make you a hypocrite. ...

This is a judgement call. Personally, I don't think you can assume that someone is a hypocrite just because they take measures to reclaim the internet connection they paid for, even if that person does take advantage of the service outside of their home network. I offered an example of a Superbowl party next door, but there could easily be any number of other justifications for taking such actions, perhaps even including paranoia over the previously mentioned copyright/porn issues.

But take this scenario as alternative example: Your next door neighbor and you both have Comcast. Your neighbor is a heavy BitTorrent user, and routinely saturates his own connection to the point where it's entirely unusable for anything else. You happen to know this because you were sipping tea on your back deck, and overheard him griping to his best bud over brews in his backyard, about how annoying it is that he can't play online games without first killing all of his torrents... and his bud advises him to just shift that torrent traffic over to a neighbor's WiFi connection. You sit silently out of sight as they go back inside, but you're actually fuming, and thinking to yourself, "Wait... that's me! WTF?!?"

The following day, your connection totally craps out... so he presumably followed his bud's advice. And being the intelligent Slashdot reading geek that you are, you promptly secure your network. Nothing at all hypocritical about it.

Or, to rephrase your earlier statement: the majority of users (even Slashdot reading geeks) will never go that far -- unless an adverse situation arises. Personally, I'm currently not affected by this issue, as I have Verizon FiOS, and (to my knowledge) Verizon has not yet implemented such a feature... but if I ever do find myself in such an adverse situation, you can bet that I won't feel the least bit guilty about cutting off access to whoever is leaching off of my connection.

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way is not to play: don't get a wifi-enabled CPE router from the provider in the first place. Run your own WAP.

Re:Conflicting goals

[Anonymous Coward]

> you must log in with your account details.

That's not really a "public hotspot" then.

Comcast hotspots don't count

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you're a comcast customer, those hotspots aren't of much use.

Mine is not one of them

[Anonymous Coward]

Just saying...

Pr0n

[Cro Magnon]

Wouldn't that be a problem when your neighbor has child pr0n on his box?

Re:Pr0n

[Anonymous Coward]

Second set of radios for public use with a different SSID routed separately easily solves the issue of accessing people's boxes. As for your neighbor...that's a problem in its own right.

Re:Pr0n

[John Allsup]

The public hotspot and private network will be separate (though whether it gets a separate IP is another thing). Your secret stash is safe.

Re:Pr0n

[TWX]

Because that stops the police from going to the judge with the address of the hotspot to get a no-knock warrant...

Re:Pr0n

[internerdj]

And then the cops need to figure out if it was your neighbor, someone drifting through the neighborhood for your wifi, or just you using the public SSID to hide your shadier internet business. Everybody's computer in half a mile is going to take a trip downtown.

Re:Pr0n

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that stops the police from going to the judge with the address of the hotspot to get a no-knock warrant...

No-knock not only applies to the door, but it also applies to knocking heads of the would-be arrestee(s) once they enter the premises.

No Thanks

[PPH]

Even if the telecoms are not counting the public hotspot use against my caps, it could impact the performance of my network.

But mainly, it's the desire not to attract certain elements into my neighborhood who depend on free services. I wish I could find a pic of the hobo sitting in front of his tent in the 'Seattle Jungle' camp pecking away at his Apple laptop. Probably mooching off a local business' unsecured WiFi. It was run on the local news during a report on some recent drug murders there.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a "guest" access point that is open to the public. The download and upload rates are limited so it is best used for things like checking mail rather than watching netflix.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I will build a big metal wall around my dominions and make AT&T pay for it.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine sure as hell won't be. Also who needs a bunch of public wifi hotspots on suburban streets? #citypeopleproblems

Re:No Thanks

[thegarbz]

a) What are data caps? Is that still a thing in the modern western world?
b) Have you heard of QoS? You can quite easily setup a network to give priority packets to one connection, that is significantly easier to do than actually filter it by content. Any 10 year old script kiddy should be able to configure a router in a way that your max connection speed is maintained when the connection is shared. The other user's may not but then they don't have such guarantees.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

a) Yes the only 2 ISPs available in my Chicago suburb are: Comcast (300GB/mo cap) and AT&T U-verse (250GB/mo cap). Good luck with an online backup of a 4TB drive!
b) If you have access to QoS the traffic, then it's all your traffic and counts toward your cap.

Also worth pointing out is that ISPs who turn their customers' WiFi APs into shared APs don't actually make them public... you have to login as a registered user of that ISP.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

you know if you took your head out of your ass and dealt with the root cause of the problem, you wouldn't have to deal with the symptoms.

just a thought you know.. plus if those free services are offered everywhere, who says they will congregate near your property.. unless you already live near by such a camp. but here's a thought, how about we get rid of those camps and try to find a way to pay everyone a livable wage so we didn't force people into a horrible cycle of debt..

but that will never happen because of course you and you alone are the only one to thank for your personal success, not to thank your parents, skin color, genital lottery, or your ancestors. feel comfortable in your privilege. because truthfully, you are the one living on a land that was stolen from the rightful inhabitants..

maybe that's why Americans say nothing about Israel's War crimes, because the second you openly condemn a nation for occupying and violently taking another nations land you become the largest hypocrites in the world.

becaue obviously, its the poor persons fault that they are poor, not because they were born into a poor family, or that they were born with a skin tone other than white, or stuck in the jail/debtor cycle.. but of course none of that is ever your responsibility, you sociopathic asshole

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears you covered almost everything except for 'save the whales'.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too, mine is called "free internet". It redirects all requests to shock pictures hosted locally.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if the telecoms are not counting the public hotspot use against my caps, it could impact the performance of my network.

They're on separate MACs. It won't affect your connection if you bother to think about it. Are you expecting vans of wifi freeloaders to park on your drive? The same people that need accounts to access the router. These aren't open to all and sundry, you need to be on the network, have the right service, or buy access to it.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could find a pic of the hobo sitting in front of his tent in the 'Seattle Jungle' camp pecking away at his Apple laptop. Probably mooching off a local business' unsecured WiFi.

He's probably writing a kick-ass screenplay.

Re:No Thanks

[mattventura]

The real reason it's a load of shit is because if they have the spare bandwidth to provide hotspot services without impacting my network performance, that means they could use that bandwidth to provide me with better service. But they don't.

Re:No Thanks

[Rakarra]

What are data caps? Is that still a thing in the modern western world?

In the US they are. You either have the obvious, advertised data cap, or else you have an invisible cap where the ISP starts messing with your connection speed without telling you. One way out of that mess is not to use the large carriers, but they have municipal-granted monopolies or duopolies in most areas. If you're lucky enough to have FiOS or better yet a local ISP with a huge pipe, you can be in a pretty good position. Not a lot of people have that sort of thing as an option.

b) Have you heard of QoS? You can quite easily setup a network to give priority packets to one connection, that is significantly easier to do than actually filter it by content. Any 10 year old script kiddy should be able to configure a router in a way that your max connection speed is maintained when the connection is shared. The other user's may not but then they don't have such guarantees.

QoS is beyond the abilities of many home Internet users, especially because in many cases you'd have to use your own router. I have never had an ISP-approved/supplied router that supported QoS, and my current ISP is a local service that is otherwise considered one of the best in the nation. Their default routers suck, though at least they're totally chill if I want to use my own. Which I'm about to, because having high ping times in games when any other device tries to do any sort of download or streaming.. that really sucks.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

They do. You just need to pay out the ass for it since they consider it "infrastructure" tier bandwidth use.
This sort of stuff is usually only available to business.

Re:No Thanks

[rsborg]

Even if the telecoms are not counting the public hotspot use against my caps, it could impact the performance of my network.

But mainly, it's the desire not to attract certain elements into my neighborhood who depend on free services. I wish I could find a pic of the hobo sitting in front of his tent in the 'Seattle Jungle' camp pecking away at his Apple laptop. Probably mooching off a local business' unsecured WiFi. It was run on the local news during a report on some recent drug murders there.

In our case, we used to have random folks hanging out on the curb near our house (sometimes late at night playing loud music), then I took a bat to my "xfinitywifi" cable modem/router, and bought a device that did not have wifi capabilities.
I still saw the "xfinitywifi" and people still randomly parked in front of my house.
I told my neighbors who are also annoyed by these interlopers, we all replaced our modems... and now no more jerks in our neighborhood (for the past several months) - and bonus - no rental fee for each of our cable subscriptions.

Re:No Thanks

[The-Ixian]

I have an open wifi hotspot that I let anyone use.

I am in an apartment building and the SSID is: Free_Internet_Courtesy_of_apartment_311

I am happy to let my neighbors use my Internet. I certainly don't utilize it fully myself (I have 1Gb up/down).

I remember when I first moved in. I didn't have the Internet lined up right away and was using a neighbor's open wifi for about a week. I was so grateful for that I decided I would give back.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Qos isn't a magic wand anyway. Remember that while you might be able to prioritize your upstream, your downstream is still co-mingled.

Re:No Thanks

[thegarbz]

QoS is beyond the abilities of many home Internet users, especially because in many cases you'd have to use your own router.

Okay let me stop you right there. None of this is in control of the user of these devices. What typically happens is you connect your modem / router to the cable, it connects based on your address and bam a configuration change happens doing all sorts of wonderful things like enabling / disabling IPv6, or enabling / disabling port forwarding (e.g. since there's no need to port forward if you're behind a CGNAS box since you don't have a public IP). The ISP is in control of most of the settings, and very few of them are available to users. I can't tweak any QoS settings on my router. They do exist through, along with SNMP and many other features I have access to they are listed in the datasheet, and my ISP's FAQ mentions specifically that their public WiFi spot will not affect your max download speed (implying some form of prioritisation).

I'd love to test this theory now but unfortunately I had to switch to a business account since after my modem connected I lost access to the port forwarding function. The business account had a public IP address not behind NAT, and I was advised to wait 2 days then reset the modem/router. After doing so it looked like a completely different model as far as the feature set that was available on the admin interface.

Don't assume that because you don't have a fancy interface for a feature that it's not "supported" by the device. Chances are it is, but just not for you.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears you covered almost everything except for 'save the whales'.

Sorry, you got it wrong. What he didn't mention was "land rights for gay transgender whales"

Re:No Thanks

[PPH]

He's probably writing a kick-ass screenplay.

Something along the lines of a home invasion in suburbia. Killing the whole family and using their house to cook meth.

2 things:

[Yonder Way]

1. Use your own modem. Your ISP should have a hardware compatibility list. Pick a model off of that list and you're good to go. I ended up picking one with no internal WiFi capabilities, because I had something better in mind.
2. I can't speak highly enough about the combination of a pfSense based router (I run mine on Netgate hardware) and Ubiquiti UniFi wireless equipment. I've got access points at opposite ends of my property to blanket the whole house and yard with WiFi coverage and it works very well. The AP's work cooperatively together, and I've been able to get creative about how I provide guest networking with this combination.

Re:2 things:

[__aaclcg7560]

Use your own modem.

Years ago I had the default DSL modem that suddenly died after year of service. So I bought a business-class DSL modem that cost twice as much, had a much better features and actual throughput was much faster. Quite useful when I was working from home one day a week.

Re:2 things:

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you have to deal with your ISP's WiFi enabled hotspot router and can't turn it off, you can seriously impede the useful range of it with very cheap materials. As in, impede it down to being worthless more than 10ft from the box. Then, you just hook in your own router behind it with WiFi you control and you're fine.

I'm actually running exactly this setup with Comcast and have been the last 6 years w/o issue. Even being double NAT'd on their systems due to double home rouers, I have 0 issues with outbound VPN connections, XBox Live gaming (Destiny, when I played it, was lag free on my bit and chat was perfect) and there are ways to run client started public access services from behind such a thing.

Re:2 things:

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Use your own modem. Your ISP should have a hardware compatibility list. Pick a model off of that list and you're good to go. I ended up picking one with no internal WiFi capabilities, because I had something better in mind.
2. I can't speak highly enough about the combination of a pfSense based router (I run mine on Netgate hardware) and Ubiquiti UniFi wireless equipment. I've got access points at opposite ends of my property to blanket the whole house and yard with WiFi coverage and it works very well. The AP's work cooperatively together, and I've been able to get creative about how I provide guest networking with this combination.

I have two routers - one ISP supplied, the other my personal router. I turned off ALL WiFi capabilities on the ISP supplied router and turned it into a gateway. My personal router is used to serve WiFi throughout the house with the guest access disabled and a secured SSID with a passphrase with so many alphanumeric characters that any would-be hacker would require a very powerful computing device to crack.

I guess I'll just have to opt-out of this home-router-as-public-WiFi-hotspot initiative.

Re:2 things:

[Anonymous Coward]

In my country (Europe, NL) there are several providers doing this, with several approaches. Most providers lock their users in to only their own network. Only one provider uses the FON service and allows international advantage of sharing your wifi.

In practice however it's not only gold that shines. For example, location of the router: indoor and outdoor use prefer totally conflicting places for the router. If it can be relocated at all. Apart that, most if not all routers from the telco's are cheap shitty hardware, meaning the wifi is severely under-performing, especially outdoor. They may show fine signal on your mobile, but are unable to pick up the mobile's wifi.

About firewalling we don't have to care, it are virtually different networks, and as far i know the user cannot configure the public wifi service at all, apart en- and disabling it. If this brings extra security risks is a matter of speculation, we all know how hardened cheap routers are..

However, from legal point of view, i am happy the ISP takes the responsibility. For any home-brew 'free wifi' solution, the subscriber would or could be held responsible for all data. Exactly this has stopped me before from offering free wifi for others.

Summarizing: I think it's great system but often badly and too cheaply implemented. When moving with a cellphone the usability drops to zero because cellphones are unable to maintain two or more wifi connections and route traffic more intelligent. Still, it's a great way to provide `free` internet to everyone, which in itself is a great goal. If only it was really free and providers would co-operate. Yet better than nothing.

Re:2 things:

[misosoup7]

Why don't you just buy your own modem? It's cheaper than renting the modem from Comcast.

Re:2 things:

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I'm renting a unit in a small townhome style complex and the main inbound router isn't within my control. It's the owner's. I have mine hooked in to his and split out to my own router which is of my own purchase.

I'm well aware it's cheaper than the Comcast rental. It just wasn't an option.

Re:2 things:

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a Ubiquiti WAP. It started flaking and died entirely. It took Ubiquiti several months to replace it under warranty -- they claimed that they had no stock.

I recycled the POS and bought an ASUS.

I turned that shit off

[Anonymous Coward]

just eating up wifi channels.

Big question...

[__aaclcg7560]

My roommate has Comcast and we're debating whether or not to replace the Comcast router with a non-Comcast router. Mostly because the routers that Comcast provide have minimal features. Also because Comcast could turn on the community hotspot, which may or may not be using the bandwidth we are paying for.

Re:Big question...

[XxtraLarGe]

My roommate has Comcast and we're debating whether or not to replace the Comcast router with a non-Comcast router. Mostly because the routers that Comcast provide have minimal features. Also because Comcast could turn on the community hotspot, which may or may not be using the bandwidth we are paying for.

The other benefit you're going to get is that you'll reduce your bill by $10 a month.

Re:Big question...

[__aaclcg7560]

The other benefit you're going to get is that you'll reduce your bill by $10 a month.

My roommate won't discuss the monthly bill. I'm perfectly content with paying $20 per month for DSL service. But my roommate is speed maniac and pays for the privilege go into plaid.

Re:Big question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do it, you can get a much better router and modem AND save money on the rental fees.

Public?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of Comcast, their "public" wifi cannot be used by anyone. Only Comcast customers are allowed. People using this feature should use a VPN because the connection is not encrypted!

3 in 3 Juniper Routers are already public hotspots

[Anonymous Coward]

Zing!

And comcrap will make you pay to rent them with

[Joe_Dragon]

And comcrap will make you pay to rent them with you having to cover the power bill as well.

Re:And comcrap will make you pay to rent them with

[Anonymous Coward]

an easy solution is to turn it off if you do not want it instead of complaining about it. An alternative is buy your own cable modem and use your own router, it pays itself off in 6 months.

Have I Missed something?

[nukenerd]

FTFA :-

the research highlighted the consumer benefits

This benefits the owner of the router how exactly?

Re:Have I Missed something?

[Anonymous Coward]

The usual deal is the owner of the router gets free WiFi throughout the network.

Re:Have I Missed something?

[LQ]

FTFA :-

the research highlighted the consumer benefits

This benefits the owner of the router how exactly?

RTFA: "Nevertheless, the research highlighted the consumer benefits that the policy offers, such as free or reduced-fee access to the operator’s homespot network."

Re:Have I Missed something?

[flanksteak]

The only benefit I can see here is increased availability of wifi in public places could put pressure on mobile phone companies to keep their data plan pricing more attractive. And that's a maybe.

Re:Have I Missed something?

[gstoddart]

The "consumer" is defined as people who want the wifi, the people whose power bill is being leeched off .. well, tough.

Don't you know corporate profits and business models trump having everyone else pay for their infrastructure?

Socialize the costs, privatize the profits.

Re:Have I Missed something?

[silas_moeckel]

Well there is an indirect benefit of other all the other hotspots. If you allready using the wifi there is no additional costs or burden. If your not using the wifi why didn't you ask to have it turned off or done the sane thing and bought your own cable modem?

Re:Have I Missed something?

[ShanghaiBill]

This benefits the owner of the router how exactly?

In a competitive market, it would mean lower prices.

In a monopolistic market, it doesn't matter if the customer benefits, because the customer doesn't have any choice.

Re:Have I Missed something?

[Tim the Gecko]

The "consumer" is defined as people who want the wifi, the people whose power bill is being leeched off .. well, tough.

I would think that a lot of people belong to both these categories - you spend a lot of time at home, but sometimes you travel to other places where pain-free WiFi would be useful. However, most posters here seem to be saying these two sets are totally disjoint.

Re:Have I Missed something?

[ooloorie]

Well, depends on the terms. They can give you reduce rates and reciprocal privileges.

Re:Have I Missed something?

[Anonymous Coward]

consumer is defined as comcast customers that have this wifi network still enabled...therefore...they're both. Aside from that fact, you can turn it off.

Re:Have I Missed something?

[Shatrat]

The service provider owns the router.

Nothing a pair of snips cant take care of

[thechemic]

Time to rearrange some wires!

Do Americans still not have proper 4G?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'n 2016? For crying out loud...

Re:Do Americans still not have proper 4G?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US really has no excuse, although people frequently try to claim that the US is a big place or that most people don't live in cities. But only 15% of the US population lives in rural areas, compared to 27% of Europe's population living in rural areas.

Not on my watch.

[malditaenvidia]

Good luck trying that in bridge mode, scumbags.

Why would someone want to share dialup?

[Anonymous Coward]

Asks the guy from Seattle.

Re: Why would someone want to share dialup?

[Anonymous Coward]

By 2017 we might have ISDN.

Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[Hrrrg]

My Comcast modem has wifi turned on. A year or two ago, I read that this could be turned off by changing a setting at Comcast's site. I cannot find that option. Does it still exist?

BTW - I would like to replace their modem, but I also get my phone service through it. I am starting to explore VOIP phone services such as Magicjack. (I want to keep my old phone number and be able to use my fax.

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't depend on the Comcast interface to do the job, logon to the router directly and do it at that level. those directions should be in some of the docs you got for the router.

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[Hrrrg]

don't depend on the Comcast interface to do the job, logon to the router directly and do it at that level. those directions should be in some of the docs you got for the router.

I should have said - there does not appear to be any way to turn off Wifi even when logging into the router directly.

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[jtmach]

They disable the setting on the device and make you do it through there website, where it takes up to 24 hours I believe to change.

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[jtmach]

Log into your account.
Click on My Services
Where you see your internet service listed. Click on Mange
Click on Manage your home hotspot
Change the setting, I believe it can take some time to actually take affect.

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[Hrrrg]

They disable the setting on the device and make you do it through there website, where it takes up to 24 hours I believe to change.

That's what I thought, but I cannot find it on their website. Is it still there?

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[jtmach]

*their

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[Hrrrg]

Log into your account.

Click on My Services

Where you see your internet service listed. Click on Mange

Click on Manage your home hotspot

Change the setting, I believe it can take some time to actually take affect.

Thanks!!

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[crow]

For phone services, I would suggest looking into an OBi100 or similar device. http://www.amazon.com/OBi100-T...

This is similar hardware to Magicjack, but it works with whatever VoIP provider you choose.

I'm with voip.ms, which is $.01/minute billed in 6-second increments for all calls (in and out). There's an extra $1/month, plus another $1/month for 911 service. If you want caller ID names, it's an extra $.01/call, but only if it's not in the contacts you set up on their web page. There is a fee for porting numbers.

Another option is Google Voice. All calls (US/Canada) are free, but there's no caller ID names, even from your Google Contacts. Also, Google only lets you port mobile numbers, not land-line numbers, but people have managed to do it by first porting their cell phone to a prepaid cell. (I have our outgoing calls set to a Google Voice number, which can be a bit confusing for people.)

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[Anonymous Coward]

They disable the setting on the device and make you do it through there website, where it takes up to 24 hours I believe to change.

That's what I thought, but I cannot find it on their website. Is it still there?

Yes the option is still on their website. But it doesn't disable the wifi from broadcasting, it just hides it. With it "disabled" on mine, I still have it broadcasting a no-name SSID.

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[Anonymous Coward]

that must be new, I just logged onto my router and turned them off. but I have a combo phone and internet box. when I tried the Comcast web management route it did not work. but that was a year ago.

Re:Turn off Wifi on a Comcast Modem?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's here on my account

https://customer.xfinity.com/WifiHotspot

economics

[argStyopa]

So when these companies tell you "ok you have to take our DSL modem/router" do they tell the customers that they're offering their bandwidth publicly? Do you as a customer get a discount?

Is there a security issue, say, if you have a home LAN with people publicly accessing your router?

Personally, unless there's a substantial discount, I'll do everything in my power from pringles-can antenna to simply removing the antennas and running cables to low-power WAPs (deep in the center of my home, far from my property boundaries) to make my 'public availability' as negligible as possible).

more like 1 in 7...

[Anonymous Coward]

... if my house is a representative household :D I have 4 active Mikrotik devices (mesh network at 10Mhz and nv protocol) to provide ethernet port dropouts throughout the house in two separate networks, 2 buffalo routers with dd-wrt in boxes that were the previous equipment, and 1 fonera router that is the public hotspot (the internet for it comes from the other public hotspot in the area, and a little Rpi and some python lines makes sure I stay logged to their captive portal the entire time)

Since when ISPs have enforced copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you talking about? I cannot remember the last time I paid actual money for watching a movie at home, probably Bush was still president.

IoT + universal wifi = Privacy Nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

IoT + universal wifi = Privacy Nightmare

I can't see it

[JustNiz]

Seriously I just can't see it ever happening other than by it being forced on broadband customers, or it being the default setting on all routers and there being enough ignorant owners who don't know to turn it off.(kinda like the "all computers come with windows" model).

Even on routers that segregate wifi clients outside the LAN firewall, the charming person sitting in their car outside your house and surfing child porn sites is still doing so through your IP address. Good luck trying to explain that to the technically clueless judge.

Also the first time your netflix movie is laggy or you keep dying in your favourite online FPS because someone across the street is free-loading a significant chunk of your bandwidth is when you will turn off public access and leave it off.

Re:I can't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that this is Slashdot, I'm surprised how uninformed people are and how much FUD there is here. Or maybe I should not be surprised.

The public WiFi hotspot uses a separate DOCSIS service ID, so it's a totally separate logical network (think VLAN but even more separate). As such, the hotspot users authenticate against the provider's server and get a separate (usually private) IP from the provider. Neither the usage not the bandwidth counts against your "regular" service allocation. It's all logically separate, just uses the same coax cable, same modem, same WiFi hardware. You still get your x-Mbps you signed up for, your public IP, bridge mode or not, it doesn't matter. So, there's virtually no impact on your regular service... except for using the WiFi spectrum, but that's not different from setting up a physically separate router, which would be more wasteful in terms of equipment and power consumption.

Re:I can't see it

[JustNiz]

Not true unless you buy all new hardware that supports it, and combines the router and modem into a single unit.

I like many people have a separate wifi router connected to a cable modem. My router is a fairly new one so supports firewalling the wifi, but even so, anyone with that setup can;t help but be the same: The traffic going to/from the internet is aggregated by the router and NAT before it even hits the modem, so there is no way for the modem or anything upstream to even be able to tell what individual packets are what user's (at least without doing something like SPI and even that would be unreliable).

Routers

[Anonymous Coward]

3 in 1 routers will be used for data, voice, or something else by 2026.

Electrical bill and other user fees

[Anonymous Coward]

So, who pays the electrical bill to keep the ISP hotspot powered up 24 hours per day? Can I bill them for the cost of the electricity along with a rental fee to store their equipment on my property per month out of the weather? Hey! my property rental fee is high because of location, location location!! What about a fee based on a per connection basis? Hmmm, 100 users connecting at $1.00 per connection makes $100.00 (my access fee). Now to work on the data usage plan since the wire to the modem crosses my front lawn.....what about charging back the fee I have to pay to rent the ISP equipment to those that mooch off my modem?

Faraday cage

[Anonymous Coward]

Just hardwire it to a wifi router and wrap the modem in aluminum foil.

Fuck 'em

[Hizonner]

I've been running open WiFi for over a decade now, and I don't mean to stop. And the load is very low, by the way; I've only had one problem and was able to resolve that very quickly.

But if my connection is going to be loaded in any way by random people, I'll be damned if my ISP is going to get paid for it. I already pay them for that bandwidth.

Not that I'd ever use those particular ISPs anyway... one reason being that their contracts tend to try to tell me I can't run open WiFi.

Not Comcast

[jgotts]

As a few others have said, Comcast home routers cannot be considered public Wi-Fi hotspots in any way, shape, or form. They're private Wi-Fi hotspots for Comcast residential customers only. If this is what the article says, then the author is misinformed.

DEAUTH

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Raspberry Pi send DEAUTH packets to anything connected to the public facing hotspot.

If you want to use that functionality, I will accept cash payments for access.

Better yet, I will throttle the hot spot via DEAUTH packets. Everyone gets 5 mins of uninterrupted access. For more, compensate me.

It's my bandwidth, my electricity, and my radio spectrum.

More 2.4 Ghz (and now 5!) pollution

[swb]

This is my biggest gripe with this kind of "plan". It's bad enough that the city sold access to an ISP to blanket the city with 802.11 (which they do on multiple channels), adding in wireline providers doing it everywhere will just reduce the usability of wireless for everyone by polluting the spectrum.

ISP hotspots makes users vulnerable to phishing

[evilRhino]

I've seen quite a few xfinity wifi spots around, but in order to use them they require my Comcast credentials. I never use them because I'm not sure if it's honeypot built to steal my credentials. I could install an app to confirm if the hotspot is real, but doing so requires giving Comcast invasive permission to access data on my phone.

Re:ISP hotspots makes users vulnerable to phishing

[Registered Coward v2]

I've seen quite a few xfinity wifi spots around, but in order to use them they require my Comcast credentials. I never use them because I'm not sure if it's honeypot built to steal my credentials. I could install an app to confirm if the hotspot is real, but doing so requires giving Comcast invasive permission to access data on my phone.

Gee, who'd setup a hotspot called xfinitywifi with no logon required just to sniff the traffic that comes across it? or use it for a man in the middle attack?

Re:ISP hotspots makes users vulnerable to phishing

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee. You act as if ISP and telephone companies are not already sniffing traffic and MITM-ing you.

All your internet traffic is passing by multiple parties. The Internet is an "untrusted network". Expecting your ISP to be any safer than a common thief is asking too much from your ISP and allowing them to charge you extra in the illusion that they will keep your traffic safe.

This is soo 2005

[orogorhotmail.com]

This is soo 2005, Because i think this kind of stuff was posted years ago on /. and because since years we have this in france

On the downside my box has some built in vlans with qos to allow for iptv (reserved to me) and public wifi access for everyone with the same isp (captive portal with a pass given by the isp).
I could actually check the source code or the commercial documentations but i am 99.99% sure that not a single packet from the public wifi could pass if i am sucking all the bandwith for my personal use

On the upside i pay 30€ for triple play (my isp name is "free"),I just checked i am at 18/1 MB/s down/up
Some of the interesting stuff i get is free usenet, a box that can record tv, a hard drive, dect central phone conf, wifi access point, Gb switch, an android like box for tv with games, a joystick.
Load of tv channels (150-300? i watch about 20), some channels in hd.
Free phone calls to i don t know how many countries ( i d say all the "develloped" ones ) and super cheap calls to about half the world.
It's also shipped with power line communication adapter, has a local 3g repeater so i have perfect cellphone reception at home.

Maybe there are other advantages that i couldn t think about, that would interest peoples.
I believe most french isp in france have this kind of offer; +/- some advantages, and i think/hope this kind of offer will become the standard in US.

No thanks!

[Varenthos]

My ISP doesn't offer this "feature" of public hotspots. If I ever ended up with one that did, I would do exactly what I do now - disable all wireless on their equipment and use my own AP.

I don't want people that I don't know sitting on my front lawn so they can use the public side of my wifi. But if that were ever the case, at least I could yell at them to get off my lawn!

Will they be paying me for the privileged

[oh_my_080980980]

Because if not, then fuck off.

Re:Will they be paying me for the privileged

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. They will pay you.

I cannot confirm their policy, but here in Canada, the clients are paid to run a hotspot router for the ISP. The WIFI service in this article has been in Canada for more than a couple years. I think all the ISPs offer it here.

Often it is a business that does it because that it is cheaper and easier than setting up their own.

As a client using the WIFI, you need to be a customer of the ISP and configure your device to work. To login, the customer uses an admin page to add the MAC numbers of their devices and then requires their login credentials to connect to WIFI using those devices.

The ISP claims that it is a special router and that the traffic is separated and does not effect the total bandwidth already paid for by the customer running the hotspot.

I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the point of these public hotspots on home routers? If I am in range of one of these it means I am in someone's neighborhood. Which means I am at a friends/relatives house. And that friend/relative is going to give me his wifi password if I need it. Or else he's not a friend/relative I am not likely to visit anyway. So why would I need a public hotspot? These sound like they would only be useful for stalkers. If I am somewhere i would need a public hotspot, like a restaurant, or store (many of which already offer their own public wifi) then this whole matter is irrelevant.

Another reason to buy your own modem

[Anonymous Coward]

Spend the money to buy and own your own cable modem and wireless router. Not hard to counter.

Physical solution

[spaceman375]

My WiFi/router is in my basement. I get a great signal throughout the house, even on the second floor. The signal on the back deck is a bit lower, but still fine for streaming music during a party. It drops to zero by the edge of the yard. No curbside surfing for you: Can't Haz!

After two decades....

[MercTech]

After two decades of being told to close and encrypt your router for security; now we are supposed to make them part of a public network? Hmmmm