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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.
they already are?
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.