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This is no surprise!!Hasn't a story similar to this posted already? | |
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Re: This is no surprise!!I thought so. I guess as it's rolled to each region people will be surprised by it. For me I would opt out to lesson the chances of someone finding a backdoor and hacking into your system via the public WiFi. If people can break into safe vaults at a bank they can get into anything. :-( | |
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1 recommendation |
**AAWhat is going to happen when someone uses one of these hotspots to download copyrighted material via a torrent? | |
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| jlivingood Premium Member join:2007-10-28 Philadelphia, PA |
Re: **AAsaid by imanogre:What is going to happen when someone uses one of these hotspots to download copyrighted material via a torrent? Use is authenticated, which supports abuse traceback. | |
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| | Ubee E31U2V1 (Software) pfSense Netgear WNR3500L
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Re: **AAsaid by jlivingood:said by imanogre:What is going to happen when someone uses one of these hotspots to download copyrighted material via a torrent? Use is authenticated, which supports abuse traceback. Do you really think the hotspot get a second IP? I doubt it, which means all the MPAA tracker spy sees is the IP in a swarm, and that IP is linked to the customer account holder, not the person who logged in. Even if use is authenticated, it does not prevent abuse, and does not allow abuse tracking. | |
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| | | mixdup join:2003-06-28 Alpharetta, GA |
mixdup
Member
2014-Mar-5 4:23 pm
Re: **AAThe "public" network is separate from the customers' network and you get an IP on the Comcast network, so it is indeed trackable. | |
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Re: **AASo your device is completely exposed to the internet while connected to this? | |
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| | | | | BiggA Premium Member join:2005-11-23 Central CT |
BiggA
Premium Member
2014-Mar-5 6:33 pm
Re: **AANo, it's probably behind carrier grade NAT on the public side, and a public IP with local NAT on the private side. They are completely separated, so this isn't even an issue. | |
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morboComplete Your Transaction join:2002-01-22 00000
6 recommendations |
morbo
Member
2014-Mar-5 1:33 pm
Should be opt-in only"while non-subscribers can pay Comcast rates of $2.95 per hour up to $19.95 per week to use your bandwidth."
Great that Comcast wants to use your location to provide a service to other Comcast customers and paying, non-customers. Where exactly is the benefit to the homeowner? Unless additional bandwidth is assigned to the "xfinitywifi" SSID and limited at that level, the homeowners are basically giving away their service for zero benefit. | |
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| jlivingood Premium Member join:2007-10-28 Philadelphia, PA |
Re: Should be opt-in onlysaid by morbo:Unless additional bandwidth is assigned to the "xfinitywifi" SSID It is. | |
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| | morboComplete Your Transaction join:2002-01-22 00000 |
morbo
Member
2014-Mar-5 2:08 pm
Re: Should be opt-in onlysaid by jlivingood:said by morbo:Unless additional bandwidth is assigned to the "xfinitywifi" SSID It is. Thanks for clarifying that. Can you verify how much is assigned to it? Does it vary by location? | |
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| | | jlivingood Premium Member join:2007-10-28 Philadelphia, PA |
Re: Should be opt-in onlyI don't know off the top of my head. But it does not vary by location. | |
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to morbo
No benefit to the homeowners. If you don't want to do this with your Comcast equipment, you can OPT out..
On the other hand, if you are a Comcast subscriber and you are somewhere and want to use Comcast wi-fi, that was broadcasting in an area you were in, instead of your cell phone's data, wouldn't that be nice ???
I have my own equipment and I don't broadcast. | |
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| | ke4pym Premium Member join:2004-07-24 Charlotte, NC |
ke4pym
Premium Member
2014-Mar-5 2:49 pm
Re: Should be opt-in onlyThat'll keep the n00bs away at least. It's pretty trivial to find the AP's in a given area even if they aren't broadcasting. | |
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Re: Should be opt-in onlyYes, I know, I was just saying my router is protected and I don't let others know I have a signal.... right now, I don't even use the wi-fi part of my router, as my computer is wired straight to the router.. | |
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to cooperaaaron
said by cooperaaaron:No benefit to the homeowners. If you don't want to do this with your Comcast equipment, you can OPT out..
On the other hand, if you are a Comcast subscriber and you are somewhere and want to use Comcast wi-fi, that was broadcasting in an area you were in, instead of your cell phone's data, wouldn't that be nice ???
I have my own equipment and I don't broadcast. It's not nice when you can access the Comcast wi-fi because everyone is like you and opting out. I foresee a ton of complaints from Comcast customers that they can't find any available free wi-fi. Ironically many of these same complainers will opt out of the service themselves. | |
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| | | cork1958Cork Premium Member join:2000-02-26 |
cork1958
Premium Member
2014-Mar-6 4:34 am
Re: Should be opt-in onlysaid by Mr Guy : I foresee a ton of complaints from Comcast customers I foresee WAY more than a ton of complaints! I sure hope Charter doesn't start doing this absolutely stupid s**t!! | |
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| ropeguru Premium Member join:2001-01-25 Mechanicsville, VA
2 recommendations |
to morbo
Not only extra bandwidth, but lets go further for space leasing and power usage. I know it is minimal, but business is business. You could bet your ass that if it were reversed, Comcast would be expecting you to pay for space and power! | |
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| aabaaf join:2011-12-09 Wheaton, IL |
to morbo
We are "kind of" giving away out service for nothing. As noted, if yo have Blast Internet, which is now 105 down, they bump it up a bit, if you have this turned on, to 122 down. So the extra 17 you get is essentially giving the COMCAST side of the router, 15 (17). Same idea with upstream. Problem with this is, most people where I live have COMCAST, so they already have service from them. Only way this would work, is if I go visit a friend of mine who has COMCAST, and they don't have a guest network setup, I could sign into this, and get WI-FI to save data on my phone, or use my laptop. | |
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| dvd536as Mr. Pink as they come Premium Member join:2001-04-27 Phoenix, AZ |
to morbo
you could always turn down radio power so outside home its too weak. | |
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to morbo
And don'tcha just love the idea of strange people parking outside your house connecting to your internet? | |
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...and Comcast has the gall to charge users modem rental$8 per month, for a device that will soon by default either add to Comcast's bottom line or make cable providers more "sticky" thanks to CableWiFi. | |
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8 recommendations |
Re: ...and Comcast has the gall to charge users modem rentalAnd they've got you paying their electric bill to provide their service too. | |
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Re: ...and Comcast has the gall to charge users modem rentalOh good grief. I guess you could write that 12 cents a year off on your taxes as a loss. | |
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5 recommendations |
Re: ...and Comcast has the gall to charge users modem rentalsaid by battleop:Oh good grief. I guess you could write that 12 cents a year off on your taxes as a loss. You're kidding right? You don't think the Comcast accountants aren't dancing around the room with the millions of dollars in infrastructure costs they've offloaded onto the consumer? | |
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| | | | tshirt Premium Member join:2004-07-11 Snohomish, WA 1 edit |
tshirt
Premium Member
2014-Mar-5 2:35 pm
Re: ...and Comcast has the gall to charge users modem rentalsaid by nothing00:You don't think the Comcast accountants aren't dancing around the room with the millions of dollars in infrastructure costs they've offloaded onto the consumer? And even more important the 10's of millions (over time nationwide) for placement costs (think of all the RoW, Rackspace, electrical and construction issues Google fiber seeks to circumvent in their "Google fiber city partnership" requirements...this is the cheap and easy deployment plan. There is a parallel to Netflix wanting to place open connect servers within ISP networks, rather than housing them just outside the ISP network. | |
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Does it consumer your bandwidth?If you pay for 10/1 does the bandwidth come out of your 10/1 or do they provision your line for 20/2 and dedicated 10/1 to you and 10/1 to the hotspot? | |
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3 recommendations |
Re: Does it consumer your bandwidth?said by battleop:If you pay for 10/1 does the bandwidth come out of your 10/1 or do they provision your line for 20/2 and dedicated 10/1 to you and 10/1 to the hotspot? Potentially having dozens of people logging into your router will use memory and cpu which will degrade service to some degree, depending on the number of people. I would turn it off, and check wifi to make sure it hasn't been turned back on. You know Comcast is going to turn it back on | |
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1 recommendation |
ptb42
Member
2014-Mar-5 2:54 pm
Re: Does it consumer your bandwidth?said by davidc502:Potentially having dozens of people logging into your router will use memory and cpu which will degrade service to some degree, depending on the number of people. It will also use up WiFi bandwidth, which is getting increasingly congested. Of course, if the "guest" user connects instead to your neighbor's WiFi router, they'll still use up the bandwidth. It's only a question of whether it will be on a non-overlapping channel or whether you'll be able to "hear" it. | |
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| KevNYC Premium Member join:2002-03-31 Seattle, WA
1 recommendation |
to battleop
On the other hand, couldn't you just use the hotspot feature full-time to avoid their metering? | |
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| tshirt Premium Member join:2004-07-11 Snohomish, WA
1 recommendation |
to battleop
said by battleop:or do they provision your line for 20/2 and dedicated 10/1 to you and 10/1 to the hotspot? The latter. the 3 real issues are 1] Should subscribers be paying for a device to extend the Xfinity wi-fi network? (can be turned off, does act as a FON-like service if EVERYONE shares) 2] does it draw a noticeable power load operating 24/7(depending on outsiders usage), as compared to your own usage? 3] will it potentially saturate the limited bandwidth on your Wi-Fi channel? (or ALL local channels in high density areas where a dozen or more of these see high use) I'd think to better match the FON model that micro-credits should be applied for each hour it is left "open" for public use to equal or slightly exceed the device rental. ie the fee is $8, but a month of being left on, should pay $10, the extra $2 being for electric service. great advantage for country dwellers who may be out of range of most common use, ok for people on higher floors of taller apts, probably not enough for the first few floors overlooking a park. other choice would be a very complex payment/credit based on usage, which would rapidly become more expensive for Comcast to administer than just adding strand mounts in popular areas (might be the long term plan anyway with this initial deployment acting like probes, to determine high usage areas) | |
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2 recommendations |
BOYMTake the modem back and then go BOYM!!! | |
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| cork1958Cork Premium Member join:2000-02-26 |
cork1958
Premium Member
2014-Mar-6 4:37 am
Re: BOYMsaid by BimmerE38FN:Take the modem back and then go BOYM!!! You could do that until Comcast starts doing what Charter does and doesn't allow you to BYOM! | |
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Then it's time to switch cable providers or find a different provider... | |
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1 recommendation |
The reason for the confusion......is due to articles such as this.
The "public" hotspot is totally segregated from your personal WLAN. There are probably separate service flows on the cable modem that deal with the public hotspot. If you are using the xfinitywifi SSID, you need to log in with your account credentials. Usage is attributed to you, not whomever's hotspot you happen to be using.
Using "your" bandwidth is somewhat misleading as well. It's no different than a neighbor moving in down the street and plugging in a new Comcast cable modem, or if Comcast came along and put a public wifi hotspot on the utility pole in front of your home. There's a theoretical max on the node, but it's not "your" bandwidth...it's shared. I guess you could argue that there is additional use of the RF spectrum used for transmission of the wifi, but I wonder how detrimental that actually would be. Incremental cost? Probably $0.10 per year.
As for your benefit, in theory, you as a subscriber get a much broader wifi footprint.
I don't really see much of a downside, however you can disable it if you are really that paranoid. | |
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axus join:2001-06-18 Washington, DC |
axus
Member
2014-Mar-5 2:00 pm
I bet lots of customers will just connect to xfinitywifiWhy use your own WiFi, when you can use one that doesn't count against your cap? | |
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Rebate?I might consider allowing this hotspottng if could get some kind of rebate or discount for granting permission. | |
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| ropeguru Premium Member join:2001-01-25 Mechanicsville, VA |
ropeguru
Premium Member
2014-Mar-5 3:46 pm
Re: Rebate?Like removing the modem rental fee now that they are making double cash? | |
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QuakeOats to hurleyp
Anon
2014-Mar-8 3:10 pm
to hurleyp
By allowing Comcast to use the gateway in your home as a hotspot you are in return allowed to use all it's wifi hotspots. You can tell Comcast to disable the feature but then you won't be allowed to use any of it's hotspots. | |
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InterestingNow you know why the FBI or Homeland security showed up at your home. What security can Comcast guarantee? | |
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4 recommendations |
I Don't Think So, TimComcast can say what they want about how "separate" this is from your personal connection, but no security-minded IT person with a lick of sense would trust it. Not thumping on Comcast. This would apply to any such device from any manufacturer or service provider.
Only way I'd do that would be if there was a separate firewalling device between that router and my private network--in which case the WiFi portion would be worthless, to me, anyway. For that reasont: I wouldn't want it around, cluttering-up already-cluttered 2.4GHz wireless space.
Jim | |
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| runnoft Premium Member join:2003-10-14 Nags Head, NC |
runnoft
Premium Member
2014-Mar-5 10:27 pm
Re: I Don't Think So, TimNo way would I allow this.
Comcast says: don't worry... your neighbor uploading an illegal copy of a movie to bittorrent via your Comcast account won't impact your bandwith or affect you in any other way.
The studio says: you owe us $283,000. Pay us $25,000 and we'll forget the whole thing. Otherwise the amount you owe us doubles in two weeks.
The customer says: Comcast, please send a letter to the studio explaining that I didn't do this.
Comcast says: | |
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| VentShop join:2009-08-21 Oklahoma City, OK |
to jseymour
Perfect reason to have a separate modem and router. No reason to give an ISP possible access to your internal net anyway. | |
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2 recommendations |
xfinitywifiso, what prevents a guy from naming his router "xfinitywifi" and setting up a login page that captures signons? | |
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robbyglack
Anon
2014-Mar-5 2:30 pm
could someone get the free wifi only?i am wondering if these modem will work for 'xfinitywifi' even without active service on the private side.
would be kind of nice to have a local in house connection that i could just pay by the week when i need it or sign in with credentials from another subscription i pay for. | |
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tomdlgns
Premium Member
2014-Mar-5 3:08 pm
bridge modeDoes this still work if your device is in bridge mode? | |
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rody_44 Premium Member join:2004-02-20 Quakertown, PA |
rody_44
Premium Member
2014-Mar-5 3:34 pm
Its been here well over a yearBeen around here a long time. No issues and most actually like it. You can go thru the neighborhood and use it on your phone laptop whatever. No security issues popped up. The only downside is the wireless signal is very weak. | |
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tomdlgns
Premium Member
2014-Mar-5 3:48 pm
Re: Its been here well over a yearMy equipment is in a basement and my modem is in bridge mode. I use other devices for wifi. Signal from my house would not be very strong. I would disable it, anyway. I just need to confirm if this still applies to bridged devices. When you bridge the comcast modem (the version I have) there is no portal to login and make changes. I could login, prior to it being in bridge mode, and making changes to the modem/router/wifi, etc...which is why I think this doesn't apply to bridged modems. | |
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Jaber join:2007-07-07 Mount Prospect, IL |
Jaber
Member
2014-Mar-5 4:08 pm
Bridge modeWill this override bridge mode?
I have no need for wifi from Comcast's router and use my own AP's/Router. | |
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| BiggA Premium Member join:2005-11-23 Central CT |
BiggA
Premium Member
2014-Mar-5 6:36 pm
Re: Bridge modeThen get a normal modem. | |
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...While I can't blame Comcast for wanting to get you to pay them to set up a public hot spot in your home, because hey, life couldn't get any better for Comcast, but I wouldn't let them run a hot spot out of my home for free, let alone pay them to do it.
I'd want free internet in return for the service I'd be providing them. The real estate. The energy to run their equipment. The climate controlled environment to house their equipment. But that's just me.
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wifi hotspotWeren't they already doing this long before :P
I know with the firmware most of the recent gateways if you have wifi enabled on them then WPS is enabled as well(WPS cant be disabled) which is huge gaping security hole. Might as well not even have a wifi password set. You would think a company as large as Comcast would be smart enough to disable or remove the WPS feature. | |
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| BiggA Premium Member join:2005-11-23 Central CT |
BiggA
Premium Member
2014-Mar-5 6:37 pm
Re: wifi hotspotWPS is pretty secure. Don't you have to have physical access to the router to pair it? | |
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Will a Comcast customer be charged for criminal use of the public hotspot?Imagine you are sitting watching TV when someone that turns out to be the police kick your front door in, throw you to the floor permanently maiming you. Then arrest you and throw you in jail because some pervert was using the xfinitywifi SSID for criminal purposes. It is very disturbing that Comcast executives do not think this scheme is stealing from the customer. To make this scheme ethical, Comcast should provide to customers that opt in, a gateway at no charge and give the customer a 50% discount on their broadband connection. I am using a dual band router and I would not want Comcast's gateway using up my Wi-Fi bandwidth. Comcast corporate should be required to accept liability in writing for any criminal charges, or costs, to the customer as a result of the illegal use of an xfinity hotspot. | |
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| Hagar join:2004-10-31 Sunnyvale, CA |
Hagar
Member
2014-Mar-5 6:59 pm
Re: Will a Comcast customer be charged for criminal use of the public hotspot?This is the only reason to use/turn on this feature. We need to change the attitude that 'IP address equal person responsible for action', that is common in courts and our society.
If 50% or all Comcast modem/routers are a hotspot then the police will change their procedure for kicking in your front door because your IP was used for some illegal purpose.
/edit for clarity | |
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cableguy619 Premium Member join:2003-06-24 Chula Vista, CA |
It isnt really free wifits the opportunity for other paying customers to be connected to Comcast plant. nothing is being done to take away from what they are paying but adding a feature so you may also be connected wirelessly in other areas where you would normally not have service via your cable provider. | |
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