[ale] Fwd: Comcast Converting 50, 000 Houston Home Routers Into Public WiFi Hotspots

[Scott McBrien]

What adds insult to injury is that customers rent the equipment from Comcast, so not only are they paying for the equipment, but then Comcast is essentially reusing that without their explicit consent.

Makes me glad I decided to go with my own equipment a while back.  6 months of no rental fee savings pays for the cable modem purchase.  Setting it up with them was as painless as anything you have to work with Comcast about.

-Scott

> On Jun 10, 2014, at 5:11 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> +1.
> 
>> On Jun 10, 2014 5:09 PM, "Jeff Hubbs" <jhubbslist at att.net> wrote:
>> It occurs to me that land used to erect and operate an antenna (to include huge cell phone antennas) is not had for free; the antenna operator either leases or buys that land.  In my view, this should be no different:  opt-in in exchange for a discount...and the broadband operator shouldn't have the only say as to how much of a discount; that should perhaps fall into a PSC's wheelhouse.
>> 
>>> On 6/10/14, 4:02 PM, Paul Cartwright wrote:
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>>> http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/FTwWOjMf__8/story01.htm
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>>> New submitter green453 writes: 'As a Houston resident with limited home broadband options, I found the following interesting: Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle reports (warning: paywalled) that Comcast plans to turn 50,000 home routers into public Wi-Fi hotspots without their users providing consent. Comcast plans to eventually convert 150,000 home routers into a city-wide WiFi network. A similar post (with no paywall) by the same author on the SeattlePI Tech Blog explains the change. From the post on SeattlePI: "What's interesting about this move is that, by default, the feature is being turned on without its subscribers' prior consent. It's an opt-out system – you have to take action to not participate. Comcast spokesman Michael Bybee said on Monday that notices about the hotspot feature were mailed to customers a few weeks ago, and email notifications will go out after it's turned on. But it's a good bet that this will take many Comcast customers by surprise."' This follows similar efforts in Chicago and the Twin Cities.
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>>> Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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>>>  
>>> -- 
>>> Paul Cartwright
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Paul Cartwright
>>> Registered Linux User #367800 and new counter #561587
>>> 
>>> 
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