James Delahunty
10 Dec 2014 8:49
Comcast has been sued by a mother and daughter for the practice of using home WiFi routers as part of its plan for a nationwide hotspot network.
Under Comcast's plan to create an Xfinity WiFi Hotspot network, newer home WiFi routers of customers will activate a second WiFi signal intended to be used by house guests or by Comcast subscribers who have a mobile device in proximity to the router.
In a lawsuit filed by Toyer Grear and daughter Joycelyn Harris in a U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Comcast is accused of exploiting their customers for profit, reducing the performance of connection / WiFi network and costing customers more money on their electricity bills.
To be fair, the service can be disabled by customers, but the lawsuit alleges that the provider turns it on without their permission and so forces customers to pay the cost of powering its national hotspot network. It cites research from Speedify that finds that Comcast's secondary Internet channel will cost its national users tens of millions of dollars on their electricity bills.
Tests showed that under heavy use, the secondary channel adds between 30 percent and 40 percent more to a customer's electricity bill than the typical cost of powering the router for home use.
Comcast hopes to expand the network to 8 million hotspots by the end of 2014.
The women also dispute Comcast's claim that it will not impact performance or speed, and raised questions about a data privacy risk when external devices are allowed to connect to the router.
Sources and Recommended Reading:
Comcast sued for turning home Wi-Fi routers into public hotspots: www.sfgate.com (by @ChronicleBenny)
Is Your Comcast Public Hotspot Costing you Real Money?: www.speedify.com