[176759] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Livingood, Jason)
Thu Dec 11 12:45:16 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: "Livingood, Jason" <Jason_Livingood@cable.comcast.com>
To: Jeroen van Aart <jeroen@mompl.net>, "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:45:28 +0000
In-Reply-To: <548902D7.60406@mompl.net>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On 12/10/14, 9:35 PM, "Jeroen van Aart" <jeroen@mompl.net> wrote:
>Why am I not surprised?
You=B9re a smart guy - don=B9t believe everything you read. ;-)
>Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be
>abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some
>random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/
It would not be your fault. The public SSID has a separate IP address, so
the abuse would trace to that. In addition, all access is authenticated on
a per user / per device basis. So there is good abuse traceback.
>"A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant=B9s
>router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission.
Prior to rolling this out in a given market, generally speaking, each
customer is notified and provided with detailed opt-out instructions.
>So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their
>public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use
>that home's bandwidth.
Not really; separate bandwidth in the DOCSIS network is provisioned for
this.=20
>places a "vast=B2 burden on electricity bills
The citation refers to a highly unscientific study by a company that
looked at a commercial cable modem, in combination with a separate
commercial-grade WiFi access point. Putting aside the accuracy of that
study, the two pieces of commercial equipment are very different from the
single residential WiFi gateway at question here.
- Jason Livingood
Comcast
