Sneaky Sneaky Comcast!!!

So I ordered Internet about two weeks ago and All was well .

Up until about 3 days ago when I noticed my internet slowing down and my devices would DC and reconect to another acess point named "Xfinity" . Strange because I had never saw this AP prior to me getting internet.

And then it dawned on me,This hotspot "wxfinity" was being brodcast from my modem! My first thought was " dam somone created abother AP " thought I was being hacked for a min. I am the only one with acess to the modem/router . Keep in mind I am not very tech savvy so I hope you can understand why I was freaking out .

Anyway I decided to acess the router to see if I could switch off the AP , to my surprise, No Options to switch it off! .

So I Hopped online to see If i could find any Info on what was going on and how to fix it .

I came across a fourm where other people were having the same problem . Apparently Comcast/xfinity has been switching peoples accounts to " business status" and without concent,creating Hot spots ! For others to acesss if they are a comcast customer!. So that means anyone! Gets to connect to your! Router and use the internet YOU pay for along with the electrical Bill! All without your concent from comcast! .

Whelp needlss to say I wasn't having it ! Mostly because Comcast did not Ask my permission and they switched my account status without my knowlege. Ohh but I am sure its in the fine print somwhere. ......smh..

Another thing. What happens if somone decides to do some illegal activity using your internet ? Then what ? Maybe download some movies, suck all your banwith? . I mean hell comcast charges big bucks for megs ! I sure would like to get as much as I can out of it!

I know fron past experience that comcast will throttle your internet if you use to much banwith .

People on the forum were saying some of the tech's they called would claim to have zero knowlege of this "xfinity" hot spot .

When i called I simply said " I would like to have my hotspot removed on my business account" with no hesitation they removed it! Then afterwards I started asking questions .

Long story short on that .. They said refer back to the T&C /disclaimer i signed .


So folks if you find your self experiencing this same issue. Just call them and repeat the same words then after they turn it off go ahead and raise cain!


Kap.

a reply to: Kapusta

Sneaky Bastards.

originally posted by: Kapusta
I came across a fourm where other people were having the same problem . Apparently Comcast/xfinity has been switching peoples accounts to " business status" and without concent,creating Hot spots ! For others to acesss if they are a comcast customer!. So that means anyone! Gets to connect to your! Router and use the internet YOU pay for along with the electrical Bill! All without your concent from comcast! .

Well technically, as a Comcast customer, they are paying for service too, but I see your point. I was already aware of this because I remember seeing another ATS thread on it some time ago, but yea it's pretty devious. Of course it's Comcast, did you expect any different?

Lazy ******'s. They couldn't spend the money building a commercial and secure public wi-fi network, so they just figure they'll add an extra script onto the wifi router configuration to setup the system to accept remote login's. So now, the average wi-fi user runs the risk of having their data snarfed by an armchair data hacker, while the owner runs the risk of getting a lawyers letter for allowing illegal downloads.

originally posted by: stormcell
Lazy ******'s. They couldn't spend the money building a commercial and secure public wi-fi network, so they just figure they'll add an extra script onto the wifi router configuration to setup the system to accept remote login's. So now, the average wi-fi user runs the risk of having their data snarfed by an armchair data hacker, while the owner runs the risk of getting a lawyers letter for allowing illegal downloads.

exactly my Point sir !

ty

Welcome to Open Net

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: Kapusta
I came across a fourm where other people were having the same problem . Apparently Comcast/xfinity has been switching peoples accounts to " business status" and without concent,creating Hot spots ! For others to acesss if they are a comcast customer!. So that means anyone! Gets to connect to your! Router and use the internet YOU pay for along with the electrical Bill! All without your concent from comcast! .

Well technically, as a Comcast customer, they are paying for service too, but I see your point. I was already aware of this because I remember seeing another ATS thread on it some time ago, but yea it's pretty devious. Of course it's Comcast, did you expect any different?

Do "they" pay for my electrical bill ?

even though its not much , every bit adds up.

Honestly I don't know what to expect from Comcast anymore.

I am surprised that they are willing to put people at risk .

Opting out of Comcast Xfinitywifi Hotspots

Still sneaky of them to put it on by default....

a reply to: Kapusta

Oh don't misinterpret me or anything, I'm NOT defending Comcast. Just giving you what their likely side of the story would be.

originally posted by: Kapusta
So I ordered Internet about two weeks ago and All was well .

Up until about 3 days ago when I noticed my internet slowing down and my devices would DC and reconect to another acess point named "Xfinity" . Strange because I had never saw this AP prior to me getting internet.

And then it dawned on me,This hotspot "wxfinity" was being brodcast from my modem! My first thought was " dam somone created abother AP " thought I was being hacked for a min. I am the only one with acess to the modem/router . Keep in mind I am not very tech savvy so I hope you can understand why I was freaking out .

Anyway I decided to acess the router to see if I could switch off the AP , to my surprise, No Options to switch it off! .

So I Hopped online to see If i could find any Info on what was going on and how to fix it .

I came across a fourm where other people were having the same problem . Apparently Comcast/xfinity has been switching peoples accounts to " business status" and without concent,creating Hot spots ! For others to acesss if they are a comcast customer!. So that means anyone! Gets to connect to your! Router and use the internet YOU pay for along with the electrical Bill! All without your concent from comcast! .

Whelp needlss to say I wasn't having it ! Mostly because Comcast did not Ask my permission and they switched my account status without my knowlege. Ohh but I am sure its in the fine print somwhere. ......smh..

Another thing. What happens if somone decides to do some illegal activity using your internet ? Then what ? Maybe download some movies, suck all your banwith? . I mean hell comcast charges big bucks for megs ! I sure would like to get as much as I can out of it!

I know fron past experience that comcast will throttle your internet if you use to much banwith .

People on the forum were saying some of the tech's they called would claim to have zero knowlege of this "xfinity" hot spot .

When i called I simply said " I would like to have my hotspot removed on my business account" with no hesitation they removed it! Then afterwards I started asking questions .

Long story short on that .. They said refer back to the T&C /disclaimer i signed .

I have Xfiniity, but have not had this issue. The issue we had was a lazy-ass tech who didn't want to fix the bad latency originating from our box. Ran pathpings & tracerts, gave the CS person the numbers, and they agreed the box needed to be reset by a tech. Next day, tech shows up, fiddles with it for a while, says all is good, and leaves. I run a pathping & tracert to see what kind of improvement we were looking at, and nada. When I say nada,I mean no results, neither could be executed. Long story short, instead of fixing the issue, the tech simply blocked our ability to run pathpings & tracerts. Not a smart thing to do to people who know how to check latency & data packet loss. Even less smart to do when it prevents multiple programs from connecting to servers. Kind of a red flag there when launchers can't phone home at all.

After a few minutes of fuming, hubby calls Comcast back up, chews his way through several people to get to some supervisor, and gets them to get a tech to remotely check & reset the box (wouldn't this have been easier than sending some schlup over in person in the first place?)

As to the wifi hotspot stuff, yeah, always read a contract. "I didn't know" is no excuse for not reading your contract. I don't get why people go this route, it's supposed to be read in the first place like any service contract. It was mentioned in ours, and we spotted it in the site FAQs anyway. Even though it came disabled, we know how to shut it off it if activates.

Also, and I know it could be different for different regions & packages (budget packages I would assume) but data cap, seriously? We chose Comcast because it didn't have a data cap for any of the packages where we are, while all other internet providers did. Wow, no provider I've ever used (Verizon & Bright House in FL now Comcast in MI) has ever had a data cap. I feel for people stuck with one, that's gotta suck. As for throttling,we're gamers, I know we use a ton of bandwidth. No throttling here. Verizon was good for throttling, though, that was always a predictable lag spike with them.

a reply to: Nyiah

Yeah Nyiah glad you got that figured out . You have to be assertive when it comes to dealing with these people.

They have been doing this for over a year and while their logic makes sense a certain % of users will always miss out on notifications or information. It's also not based on if you have consumer vs business class service.

The idea was to basically extend the WiFi service of Xfinity users by broadcasting a secondary SSID from your wireless router.

On a local level It's easy to get around by simply forgetting that network.
I know this will soon be followed up by posts claiming user experiences that aren't possible based on 802.11 works or that this somehow puts you at risk.

This paragraph below, April 2014, is taken from one of the multiple Comcast pages that explain what is being done

Neighborhood Hotspots: Recently, Comcast began providing residential customers with Xfinity Wireless Gateways the ability to have a second "xfinitywifi" signal (or SSID) in their home that is separate and distinct from their private and secure home Wi-Fi signal. This second signal provides visiting Xfinity Internet customers Wi-Fi access without the need to use the homeowner’s private network password. Presently, 54% of Xfinity’s Neighborhood Wi-Fi usage travels over the second SSID.

I recomend buying your own cable modem (make sure its DOCSIS 3.0 capable), calling comcast to get it activated, and giving them back their crappy modem.

With the Xfinity wifi, you would not be liable for, say, someone downloading kiddie porn from your wifi. the xfinity wifi gets a different public IP, and users have to sign in to use xfinity hotspots, so they are trackable.

There are also seperate comm channels allocated for the xfinity hotspot, so it doesn't use your bandwidth.

there are issues however... such as, is the hardware you're given really cabable of acting as a full speed cable modem for you while at the same time acting as a public AP? I doubt it.
Also, in a congested WiFi traffic area, will servicing hotspot guests affect your personal WiFi throughput? probably.
Also, WiFi uses electricity. Its not a lot of money worth of electricity potentially being used by strangers, but it is some, and it is your money being used without consent.



On the subject of disabling internet testing: I'm on FIOS, and my modem seems to know when I'm using non-ICMP packets for testing. A few will get through, then they all get blocked. ISPs can block ICMP (ping) packets, and have a plausable reason why: resource prioritization. during busy times, resources should be devoted to actual traffic, not testing. (this itsself is bull#, but a generally accepted answer, apparently). Using non-ping packets for testing would reveal ACTUAL network performance, because unless your ISP is doing creepy deep packet inspection to determine the type of traffic (and they are, which is how this test is blocked), this should appear as normal traffic, and accurately reflect the true state o the network. Can't #ing have that, can we Verizon?!