newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2005
- Messages
- 28,472 (4.23/day)
- Location
- Indiana, USA
Processor | Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz |
---|---|
Motherboard | AsRock Z470 Taichi |
Cooling | Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans |
Memory | 32GB DDR4-3600 |
Video Card(s) | RTX 2070 Super |
Storage | 500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache |
Display(s) | Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28" |
Case | Fractal Design Define S |
Audio Device(s) | Onboard is good enough for me |
Power Supply | eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3 |
Software | Windows 10 Pro x64 |
[sigquote]Are you a Comcast or Xfinity customer? If so, there’s an exciting new initiative Comcast is trying to make you be a part of without asking. Namely one where, if you’ve got the latest version of Comcast’s WiFi “gateway,” you’ll not only be broadcasting your own private signal, but a public one! That any Comcast subscriber can use! Without your knowledge![/sigquote]
http://www.uproxx.com/technology/2013/06/comcast-makes-customer-routers-public-wifi-points
Now I will say that the article makes an extremely big deal out of this, and I don't believe it is nearly as big of a deal as they make it out to be. And they make such a big deal because of the author's obvious lack of knowledge on the subject.
First, it is entirely possible to do this without affecting your bandwidth. Comcast has an insane amount of bandwidth, they offer a 200Mbps connection. So if you have a 50Mbps connection, that is 150Mbps that is going unused, that can be used by the public wi-fi without affecting your connection speed at all. Also, Comcast has a very good grasp of what the connection to your home is capable of.
Second, they are wrong in assuming that if enough people connect to the public wi-fi it will eventually have to slow down your connection. QoS would prevent this, it would always give the private network priority. Also, if the connection is partitioned properly the public traffic will never use private bandwidth. If the line coming into your home is capable of 75Mbps and the router is set up to use a 15MBps connection for the public wi-fi, then it will get 15Mbps and only 15Mbps, while you happily get a constant 50Mbps and there is 10Mbps to spare. Yes, the public will have to share the 15Mbps, but for a public connection that is fine, even with a lot of users.
Third, the claim that someone will figure out how to hop from the public to the private. Well, there have been routers with guest wi-fi on the market for years now and I don't know of a single instance of someone figuring out how to get onto the private network using a guest connection. Also, if the gateway itself actually is two different routers in one box then this would be physically impossible to do anyway.
http://www.uproxx.com/technology/2013/06/comcast-makes-customer-routers-public-wifi-points
Now I will say that the article makes an extremely big deal out of this, and I don't believe it is nearly as big of a deal as they make it out to be. And they make such a big deal because of the author's obvious lack of knowledge on the subject.
First, it is entirely possible to do this without affecting your bandwidth. Comcast has an insane amount of bandwidth, they offer a 200Mbps connection. So if you have a 50Mbps connection, that is 150Mbps that is going unused, that can be used by the public wi-fi without affecting your connection speed at all. Also, Comcast has a very good grasp of what the connection to your home is capable of.
Second, they are wrong in assuming that if enough people connect to the public wi-fi it will eventually have to slow down your connection. QoS would prevent this, it would always give the private network priority. Also, if the connection is partitioned properly the public traffic will never use private bandwidth. If the line coming into your home is capable of 75Mbps and the router is set up to use a 15MBps connection for the public wi-fi, then it will get 15Mbps and only 15Mbps, while you happily get a constant 50Mbps and there is 10Mbps to spare. Yes, the public will have to share the 15Mbps, but for a public connection that is fine, even with a lot of users.
Third, the claim that someone will figure out how to hop from the public to the private. Well, there have been routers with guest wi-fi on the market for years now and I don't know of a single instance of someone figuring out how to get onto the private network using a guest connection. Also, if the gateway itself actually is two different routers in one box then this would be physically impossible to do anyway.