Comcast subscribers will share Wi-Fi signal, spread hotspots

[The Straight Story]

Comcast announced today that it will add a public Wi-Fi signal to private wireless routers. At no additional cost, the company’s Xfinity Wireless Gateway router devices will beam a public signal that will be accessible to any Comcast Xfinity customers. In effect, the addition will extend the company’s already 150,000-hotspot strong Xfinity Wi-Fi network by millions of users-cum-network nodes.

The additional signals will have no effect on current users’ Wi-Fi signals, and they will have the option to turn it off if they so choose (though the public hotspot will be the default setting). Current Xfinity users will be able access any of these hotspots by looking for the “xfinitywifi” signal and signing in using their username and passwords.

"WiFi is at the center of our strategy to offer our customers the best online experience, whether it’s the fastest WiFi experience in the home, or a fast and reliable WiFi environment outside the home," said Tom Nagel, Senior Vice President of Business Development, Comcast Cable. "WiFi is an important part of our strategy to be the place where customers connect all devices, anywhere and at any time."

As home ISPs face greater competition from wireless phone networks offering connectivity that is not location-specific, a larger public Wi-Fi system can be a powerful selling point for customers looking to navigate increasingly mobile lives.

http://www.techhive.com/article/2041186/comcast-subscribers-will-share-wi-fi-signal-spread-hotspots.html

[apples and oranges]

1. That's pretty fantastic. They're making it harder

for me to leave! But how secure is this?

[Jokerman]

2. I wouldn't want this on my home internet connection.

If it comes in through my router, the additional traffic could slow down my internet access.

[oldhippie]

3. I don't see why I would want this .....

... either. Why would I want my internet account to be carrying any public traffic that might be doing who knows what? I can't think of a good reason to do that.

[Recursion]

4. QoS

You might want to tweak the QoS settings, though.

In principle, it's not a bad idea, but I would probably turn it off.

[shawn703]

5. Should make file sharing lawsuits interesting

I can't see how they'd be able to pin the blame on any particular customer for downloading torrents if anybody could access the Internet though anybody else's router.


On edit, I guess they could track it based on the username/password provided to access the wifi.