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posted by n1 on Friday June 13 2014, @08:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the investing-in-infrastructure dept.

John Biggs writes at TechCrunch that Comcast is quietly turning on public hotspots in its customers' routers, essentially turning private homes into public hotspots. Comcast customers get free Wi-Fi wherever there is a Comcast box and the company gets to build out a private network to compete with telecoms. Fifty thousand users with Arris Touchstone Telephony Wireless Gateway Modems essentially basic modems that cable providers drop off at your home have already been turned into public hotspots in Houston, and there are plans to enable 150,000 more.

But concerns are being raised about this service. In addition to using customers' electricity for their service, some say that in areas that have lots of apartment buildings and multi-tenant dwellings within close proximity of one another, performance will slow down. Those routers are transmitting on the same channels for their 2.4GHz and 5GHz signals, leading to RF competition. "Comcast's FAQ about Xfinity's hotspots doesn't go into any details about channels and bands," writes Samara Lynn, "but the company should be clear about how adding these hotspot networks affects the performance of existing WLANs-especially in business use."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday June 14 2014, @02:01AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Saturday June 14 2014, @02:01AM (#55170) Journal

    Usually the antenna is external.. ;)

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday June 14 2014, @04:34AM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Saturday June 14 2014, @04:34AM (#55208) Homepage Journal

    Don't try to bullshit me, it's blinking at me now. Have you even seen a wifi router? NONE are external.

    Did I just bite trollbait?

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday June 14 2014, @04:59AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Saturday June 14 2014, @04:59AM (#55212) Journal

      Have a search on "WiFi router" and look at this example:
      WiFi router [ab9il.net]
      (They also tip on Yagi usage [ab9il.net])

      Certainly the models may differ and the antenna may be internal. But the case is still valid. Disable the antenna to get rid of the problem.

      • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday June 14 2014, @01:44PM

        by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Saturday June 14 2014, @01:44PM (#55291) Homepage Journal

        Unfortunately your first link led to a 403, but the second was interesting. However, it was about range extenders rather than the routers themselves; in the photos there are two boxes, the router with and internal antenna and the extender with an external antenna attached to the extender.

        But yeah, just disable the antenna. If it isn't your hardware, well, Good ol' Mike to the rescue with his cage (did Faraday come up with that concept or was it just named after him? Radio was way after his time).

        --
        mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org