Comcast is turning your home router into a public Wi-Fi hotspot

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bravo14

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Just sign into your account and shut it off. Or buy your own router and problems solved

Sent from my Z750C using Tapatalk

I have my own router for about 1 1/2 years and I don't have wireless on and if I did I have password and so on.
 

n9mxq

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I was, at first eager to shut this off, but having had it on, and connected to both sides. I left it on. They have to log in using their Comcast ID. So if they do anything not quite legal, it's all on them.

I have also used others Comcast while at a friends house who doesn't have internet.. Yea, one or two still exist. So all in all, I'd say it's a good thing. It doesn't slow our wifi or wired network down having someone connected. So I say big deal.
 

w2xq

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It's probably more like economies of stocking and supporting different modem models for home and business. The Comcast Business Internet unit has been promoting secure and public WiFi connections for business customers for some months now. One unit for all reduces stocking and training costs.
 

Thayne

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They must have a lot of them; they just sent me one without me asking, and I have my own modem.
I called them and they said if I don't want it just take it to the nearest office. I told them to send a prepaid UPS tag to return it to NC where it came from--but still waiting.
 

w2xq

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On a followup to my comments yesterday, a Comcast Internet tech was at the house this morning and I asked him about the dual WiFi modems. I was wrong on about stocking and supporting fewer models of modems. The modem choice is dictated by the equipment at head ends and local switches. For me, new outside post connectors and changing out the SMT modem for a 4th generation newer Cisco modem cut the ping time by a third and doubled download speed. The new modem has the dual WiFi circuitry built in, but the second signal can't be turned on. No big deal, I'm happy.
 
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CapStar362

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the "Xfinitywifi" SSID is actually a "Guest" account. it is NOT using your private bandwidth, heck it doesnt even tie in to YOUR IP, nor does it provide ANY method of getting into your private network. think of it as a "Ad" based connection. if you DONT have Xfinity, you have to PAY to get on that network after a 24 hour "Trial" period from that particular wifi, and after testing this with one of my "Spam" email accounts, i got a butt load of spam mails from Comast giving me deals and stuff. IP sniff a xifinitywifi open guest account and watch what IP it will tie you to. a google ad server!!! i did it on a neighbor of my friends house who used the trial period. IP resolves as a proxy from Comcast to Google.


further investigating, the MAC, is actually spoofed, one MAC is 00:00:00:00:00:00 connected to the radio of the xifinitywifi and the other is the Cisco ( most common ) coax modem itself.

checking further into it even more, you CANNOT disable the function. its perm in the firmware, and only flashing the firmware to the modem/gateway will remove it, but will also flag the modem for permanent termination of service to your address. a customer of mine, runs a Allstate franchise... has the new modem, and had a Tier 2 , yes a actual Tier 2 Line tech come out..... i happened to be there doing work for her PC's and he was a little more than open about what he knew about these things that he was "supposed to be"


so dont worry about the "hacking part" it ties into a different IP for Comcast's usage. and has no access to the private IP or SSID you have setup. its done by means of a VLAN function through a DMZ Proxy
 

kb1roo

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Are they going to pay or give you a price break on there service for being a hotspot ?
 

Ensnared

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Comast Swine

Since I learned that Time Warner Cable was wanting to sell to Comcast, I launched into a hour-long bout of profanity. No, I've never been a Comcast customer, but I knew someone who did have the service. They told me that the service was awful & the equipment was pretty unstable. He lived in Houston, Texas. I've also been watching how the FCC responds to the issue of net neutrality. Let's hope that the customer wins this round. But, I'm not holding my breath. I dread the day that Comcast comes to my city!
 

CapStar362

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retracted, i misread the above post



but ill add:


Comcast Tier 3 Tech is pathetic, Tier 2 is decent..... Tier 1, forget about even talking to them.... have to pay 99$ just to even ASK!!


few months ago, Routing tables for SE Corridor were corrupted. i was trying to reach a server in Chicago from Atlanta GA, get this: my signal, as verified by TRACERT and ping plotter would go, from Conyers, GA to Marietta, then Atlanta, then to LVL3 Atlanta, then ................wait for it..................................



Comcast's Regional "IBONE" backbone, to .....................
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MIAMI FLORIDA!! but that's the start.................

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then BACK to Atlanta, then to LVL3 Kansas City.... then off to Chicago. i had a poop fit with that....... latency for my gaming and a couple other latency critical applications went from a average of 18-28 ms from ATL to CHI to 80-150ms with severe spikes in to 1000+ ms !!!!!!!


then it got worse.......... i found out, through ping plotter and TRACERT, Comcast was also offloading my 120/20 Service ( yes, i have 120 Mbit down / 20 Mbit Up ) to POTS DSL Nodes for ATT? <-- DO WHAT?!?!? no POTS DSL Node can handle a 120/20 connection...... even VDSL wont touch that! VDSL will spike @ about 54/8 Mbps so effectively my service was routinely being cut in half by the offloading!!! this upset me and my house mates!! because we have a TON of devices..... 3 ipads, 4 PC's, 3 laptops, 6 android phones, and 2 more tablets, not to mention the smart TV's and a DVR for house cams..... ALL tied into the 120/20 service, QoS is enabled of course and manages well. that's being provided by a nOS "smoothwall" legacy PC i built. a P-III 933 1GB SDRAM 80GB IDE dual Gbit NIC system as the router, which feeds a WiFi N300 AP and then the 8-14 ports on Ethernet routed around the house.

it took me14 times of calls and emails to argue with Tier 3, Tier 2, EXECUTIVE CS !!! even the damn Engineering Supervisors !!! to get them to figure out there really was a Routing Tables corruption present. they wound up giving me a job offering ( which a heavy heart "declined" was given for personal reasons NOT relating to Comcast ) and 3 months no pay service.













Are they going to pay or give you a price break on there service for being a hotspot ?

no they will not, because it is their device already. it is NOT using your bandwidth to be reimbursed for, nor is it even tied into your account.

its related to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_over_Coax_Alliance






EDIT 3 : reading the OP's post..... i spotted this:

"But what if you hate the idea of your private boxes turned into public hotspots? You can turn it off by calling Comcast or logging into your account online. The company says fewer than 1% of customers have done that so far." utter lie

Tier 2 line man that i had a nice chat with said it CANNOT be turned off. its embedded in the firmware
 
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N9JIG

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I have actually never had a problem with Comcast, they have always been responsive and helpful in service calls.

That said, they sent me one of the new Technicolor combination WiFi, telephone, Modem and Router deals to replace my older separate modem and phone boxes. I set it up (easy) and it seemed to work well, but I soon realized that it was causing issued with my TimeCapsule which is also a router and I was getting a dual NAT issue that blocked access to my videophone. I called Comcast and asked to have my old devices re-enabled and it took less than 5 minutes to do so.

From what I read online the only way to disable the router function in these new boxes was thru Support and that they would exit from Bridge Mode after a power down, making another call to Support necessary.

I was happy with my old equipment and it was(is) perfectly capable of my 105MB service.
 

CapStar362

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because its a "Gateway" combo router and modem, most of the ISP related service features are user-restricted, only CS reps can see them.


best way to control your network.... get a "Approved" ISP Retail device and your own router. i LOVE the Cisco DPS-3008 Series DOCSIS 3 modem.


be warned though.... even with a RETAIL modem, once it gets authenticated to the ISP.... ESPECIALLY Comcast, they will lockout the channel bonding controls, and some other features i cannot think of ATM.
 

CapStar362

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hehe, i took that a step further.... i dont use a "Router"


MUHAHAHHAHA!! a old Legacy P-III 933 MHz w/ 1GB of PC133 is my router..... google: smoothwall OS
 

Dude111

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I suppose one can just lock it down so the router only accepts a certain MAC CODE..
 

N9JIG

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I suppose one can just lock it down so the router only accepts a certain MAC CODE..

These Gateway devices that Comcast is distributing actually have 2 WiFi access points.

Your local one uses your allocated bandwidth and you can manage with MAC addresses, change the SSID, passwords, or even turn off.

There is a second one that is open to the public (or at least other Comcast subscribers) that supposedly does not affect your bandwidth or usage and does not allow access to your network. AFAIK there is no way for one to adjust this, restrict it or turn it off. I have read elsewhere that you could call Comcast support and they can turn it off.
 

CapStar362

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ummm yeah, how many times have i said that already? i see 2 so far? need another it looks like......



*roll eyes *
 

902

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I have another cable TV company in the Southeastern US. I just received a new cable modem because of a promotional deal lowering the monthly recurring costs and supposedly increasing throughput speed (not appreciably). The technician installed an modem which has onboard 2.4 and 5.8 GHz transceivers that are disabled (and can't be turned on through the default access unless commanded on by the cable company). I've verified that their operation is off through InSSIDer. My downstream stuff is the only thing on in my house. My neighbors, however, have a hodgepodge of cable TV and AT&T stuff with openly broadcast SSIDs and guest accounts. It's not just Comcast doing this.

This wasn't a seamless transition for me, though. The new equipment conflicted with the IP addresses I've deployed and caused a number of little compatibility spot fires in the house that needed to be mitigated. The technician didn't waste any time getting my wife's signature on the completion ticket and then racing off once he had it. There's something between it and some home automation components that seems to be buggier than the previous modem, and I keep getting communication fails when Wireshark sees the stuff registering in.

I might have bypassed all that trouble (trying to troubleshoot these little compatibility issues killed my last weekend) if I took their wi-fi service, but my equipment used to work completely. I also didn't want to be a "host" site for their public network without some kind of compensation (other than being ripped for cable a little less). Can't win. (shrugs)
 
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