The Hidden Cost of Your New Xfinity Router 224
An anonymous reader writes "The battle over Comcast's public WiFi network that is hosted on your cable modem continues. Comcast responded to Speedify's earlier power measurements by rushing them a new Cisco cable modem. The new modem proved to be more power hungry than the last, and also introduced some tricky IPv6 problems that caused major headaches for the team."
Crapfinity (Score:2)
Re:Crapfinity (Score:4, Funny)
Ptphpht.. I switched to Geico for DSL and save $300 for half the time...
It doesn't work like that. (Score:2)
No really, it doesn't work like that.
I unfriend you!
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For me, I can't get DSL and fiber. I can get satellite Internet, dial-up, etc. but why? Cable wins. TV is Internet and OTA though!
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It all depends on where you live.
Even though I live in the East SF Bay (not inland either), OTA, DSL, and non-landline phone are not much of option for me. OTA I get 2 channels - QVC and HSN, so my choices are Comcast or DirectTV/Dish. Price wise, there both basically the same. I had DSL for years, but I would barely get 3megs. For a family of four w/ 2 teenagers, that just cant keep up. And as to using a cell phone instead of landline? Those hills that screww w/ OTA tv also screw with cell signal. I
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Re:Crapfinity (Score:5, Insightful)
He said he switched to OTA, so he likely dropped a pricy cable TV plan at the same time he dropped them as his ISP, hence the savings. After the special deals as a new customer expire (i.e. 12 months into the 24-month contract), several of Comcast's TV plans exceed $150, so even if he was paying the same for Internet with DSL, he could be saving $150 simply by having dropped cable TV for OTA.
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It sounds like he had a $150 Comcast Internet + cable TV package and switched to a $30 DSL package + rabbit ears. A good move, IMO.
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I dropped Comcrap for OTA and DSL and I save $150/mo.
Sure, Comcast sucks... But what kind of Comcast plan were you on that you could have switched to DSL (or whatever) and reduce your bill by $150 and still have "high speed" Intertubes? I mean, what are you paying now? What was your Comcast bill? $250? Really?
I'm not him, and this was years ago, but when I moved from Comcast to Speakeasy DSL, (lucked out and got 3Mbps over my phone lines -- the best Verizon could do was something like 750K) I also made the decision that I also didn't need the ubiquitous cable TV and unlimited long distance calling that was bundled in. The savings really was about $150/mo. But arguably, that's cheating, because fewer services. But not really cheating, because they were services I wasn't using.
Currently have fiber to the house
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But not really cheating, because they were services I wasn't using.
That's still cheating. It wouldn't have been cheating if you removed the cable TV and unlimited long distance you weren't using before making the comparison.
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I have the same issue with Verizon. Have no serious need for a phone line but it's easily $30-40 cheaper with the bundle than without.
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So Internet costs $60
TV costs $60
But if I add a phone line I get all 3 for $90. (Or more accurately they give hefty discounts on the Internet and TV with the bundle) So yes I'm getting services for 'free' if you want to be anal about it.
That's 'forcing' you to get the bundle to get the best deal. Yes you have a 'choice' to pay more, but if you want the cheapest deal from a particular provider you are 'forced' to choose from what they offer.
In my
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Comcast isn't forcing anyone to buy anything so these comparisons are apples (upper tier of TV / Internet / phone) and oranges (Internet). With Comcast I have fast Internet for around $50 plus their $15 lowest tier cable TV. Their modem was $7 / mo. so I bought my own. I'd cancel the cable TV except by doing that my Internet would be priced $15 more a month. Bottom line I'm paying about $70 for Internet plus some TV.
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For years, my Comcast Internet service has been reduced by $20/month by purchasing $12/month basic cable. I've never even plugged the cable to a TV.
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Like where I am :(
anything over 1.5 mb is Comcastshit, that's it....
Google + IPv6 = Bad (Score:3)
I too have had really bad results with IPv6 (TunnelBroker) when connecting to anything Google. You would think that Google of all companies would have their IPv6 poop in a group.
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That is odd. I have 6rd via my fiber connection and youtube etc is so much better when connecting with ipv6.
I suspect this is because no one are using those network paths yet, but maybe it's just the local content cache that sucks or something and ipv6 goes straight to google.
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That's outrageous. You should ask TunnelBroker for a full refund.
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Compared to what?!? (Score:2)
So, uh, where's the other 10 popular routers they tested?
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This story can only be taken literally if Comcast is sending a new, separate device used in addition to whatever else you used previously.
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Yup, Comcast is making subscribers fund the public wifi via their electric bills.
Aint it grand?
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Yes, I can confirm this. To use the "public wifi", you must first be a Comcast customer. When you connect to an AP, you are required to login with your comcast credentials to get connected to the net.
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Equipment A (provided by Comcast) was swapped out for Equipment D (provided by Comcast) and power usage increased. What is wrong in the comparison?
It'd be interesting to see more details on power usage from other devices, if you look at the PF figure it's just over 50% which means they must be using awful power supplies (PFC != efficiency, but it's useful as a rule of thumb, once you get into efficiency classes like IV or V you generally need active PFC - optional for IV, mandatory for V - which these things obviously don't have). Most external power supplies (EPCs) now should be class IV or V, whereas these look more like class I, a.k.a. "fail".
If th
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You're 100% correct, and they offer no comparison to that...unless of course you believe people should be plugged directly into their cable modem.
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That's a valid opinion, but it's a line of thinking that can get people in over their head. The article mentioned $30 a year. I dumped Comcast's $7 / mo. modem for my own. $7 a month is still kind of a big wup, but that's $84 year. Both together are $114 a year. Still not a bank-breaker for me but I'd rather spend my money stupidly somewhere else then hand it to Comcast and get no benefits in return. My work Aruba router is on a timer. Mostly to keep yet another WiFi network out of my house, but a little co
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Those that don't give access won't get it themself, simple.
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Just refuse the new gear (Score:4, Insightful)
I advise all my contacts when they get new comcrap or slime warner installs to go to the local big box store and pick up a router, then to demand that they get just a regular modem and not a modem/switch/wifi combo...They will often say that it is not an option...if you say "fine, I decline service, please leave immediately if you cant find a non integrated modem" suddenly one just happens to have slid under the seat in his van.....
Re:Just refuse the new gear (Score:4, Insightful)
comcrap or slime warner
Do you also type "Micro$oft"?
Grow up.
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Too bad you're getting modded down and I don't have any mod points to give you a boost. What folks don't realize is that their point may be valid but that language and tone will cause their post to be skipped over or dismissed. Without those four words I would have moderated the GP insightful.
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Are you RACIST?
Are you a REPUBLICAN?
Are you a RACIST REPUBLICAN?!
Then you can join the Racist Republican Association of America! Just watch this movie, RacistRepublicans from Outer Space!
Re:Just refuse the new gear (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a terrible idea. Every Comcast customer should use his own router and his own modem!
In fact, the only Comcast-owned equipment a customer should ever accept is a CableCard -- wait, no, scratch that. Customers should accept precisely no Comcast-owned equipment at all, because they should only use Comcast for Internet, not TV (and even then, only if there's no other reasonable choice).
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If you're not using their POS equipement, chances are you won't have many internet problems.
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Exactly
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The customer should buy the modem, otherwise theyre liable to get hit with a hidden $5/mo surcharge.
Really it IS customer equipment, and if you insist on their modem you're gonna get crap.
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You beat me to it. Thankfully, I don't have one. But if you do and you're stuck on AT&T, there is a good workaround (finally). It lets you have root via telnet and you can get true bridge mode.
http://www.ron-berman.com/2011... [ron-berman.com]
As someone who had the DPC3939 (Score:5, Insightful)
I eventually, after talking to 20+ Comcast reps, got them to put a different modem back in. Even though my plan is 250d/30u, I'm only getting 30d/5u, because the modem won't provision with my plan. However, it works, so I'd rather have that than a laggy, rebooting faster plan.
I strongly recommend avoiding the DPC3939 until the problems are resolved. It lalso ooks to me like all of the problems are software related, not hardware--usually they can be avoided by changing configuration options, etc.
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Wow, that sounds like a similar problem I was having with a dlink router years ago. It worked like a champ until my connection was upgraded (from 15Mbps to 25 Mbps) and then it started regularly rebooting. I read online it was something to do with the router not being able to keep up with the speed of the modem, an overflow would occur, causing a router reboot. Replaced router, worked fine. Later used old dlink router when setting up DSL at mother-in-law's house, and it worked fine. Still in use now.
Re:As someone who had the DPC3939 (Score:5, Informative)
Just buy your own DOCSIS 3.0 modem (e.g. Motorola SB6121 or Zoom 5341). I mean, you realize they're charging you $3-5 per month for their crappy one, right? It pays for itself in a year or so.
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I was forced to buy a DOCSIS 3.0 modem to replace my perfectly-good DOCSIS 2.0 one because Comcast shut off my access entirely otherwise.
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Yes, Comcast is EOLing DOCSIS 2.0 modems, and will eventually be EOSing them. Once a modem is EOL Comcast will no longer provision it (so no new accounts/installations), and farther down the line when it's EOS Comcast will shut off access for that modem entirely.
DOCSIS 3.0 is 8 years old now, so DOCSIS 2.0 modems are quite old. Furthermore DOCSIS 3.0 introduces multiple upstream and downstream channels, which lets operators better balance traffic over multiple channels. Hence their interest in getting rid o
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In my area, DOCSIS 2 was EOS probably about 6 months ago now. It's kind of annoying, since I was satisfied with the speed I was getting with my old modem (one of those old purple Linksys ones made to stack with a WRT54G).
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I disagree: it's better to buy a plain cable modem and a separate WiFi router. Not only is it likely to be cheaper, it allows you to upgrade to new WiFi standards without having to replace the modem (and 802.11 does change more often than DOCSIS) and lets you use a router that's more likely to be supported by OpenWRT (etc.) than any router/modem combo would be. Perhaps most importantly, given how untrustworthy Comcast is, it keeps a larger degree of separation between the modem (which Comcast has some degre
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Comcast has a list of pre-approved customer-owned modems that they won't refuse to provision.
Service in exchange for a free modem? (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually think this could be pretty cool if Comcast would offer customers *something* in exchange for them hosting a public hotspot out of their house.
How about a free modem, instead of charging them $3/mo to rent one?
I own my modem outright, so have negative incentive to upgrade. But if they were to offer me a free basic IP phone line, or a free upgrade to the next speed tier, or free access to this service I'm hosting, or *anything*, I'd certainly consider it.
But otherwise, yeah, it seems like they're forcing everyone to pay for their network electricity as a requirement of getting their own internet, with no added benefit in return.
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It isn't a 'public' hotspot, it is a hotspot for Comcast customers. And you are getting something - the ability to use those same Comcast hotspots.
Re:Service in exchange for a free modem? (Score:4, Insightful)
You get the added benefit of Comcast using up a big chunk of your dwelling's wireless spectrum with absolutely no benefit for your own devices.
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By that logic, you pay taxes for absolutely no benefit whatsoever.
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How would it benefit me to have the quality of my wireless devices such as my wifi network, Bluetooth, cordless keyboards, telephones, et cetera diminished in my own home?
I get a direct benefit from the taxes I pay, such as roads, trains, ferries, buses, police and fire services, street cleaning, research grants, et cetera. I get zero benefit from Comcast using my wireless spectrum.
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Bluetooth, cordless keyboards, telephones etc. are not generally in the same spectrum as wifi so little to no issue there (and they are all low data rate)
Your wifi in your home is going to be disrupted by others using wifi near by anyway (it is a shared medium). If you have people close enough to use your in home wifi then they likely are already degrading your service by being near and using any other wifi.
Not that I agree with comcast rolling this out without notifying people.
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Actually, almost all wireless devices use the same scientific bands: blutooth, cordless phones, keyboards, wifi, et cetera. While some do use alternatives like the 900 Mhz band, most use the 2.4 Ghz or 5.8 Ghz ISM bands.
And yes, Wifi is degraded by every single device that uses those bands, but the signal strength falls off at the square of the distance, so an interference source inside my house is much more troublesome than one outside my house.
My home wireless network already uses 100% of the 2.4 and 5.8
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Ahh. Seems to be a US problem (and other parts of the world)
"Many cordless telephones and baby monitors in the United States and Canada use the 2.4 GHz frequency, the same frequency at which Wi-Fi standards 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n operate. This can cause a significant decrease in speed, or sometimes the total blocking of the Wi-Fi signal when a conversation on the phone takes place. There are several ways to avoid this though, some simple, and some more complicated."
A different question is can you call
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Your taxes will pay for a road somewhere that you are not using. Similarly, while you wouldn't use *your own* hotspot's free wifi, you could use someone else's while away from home, and they could use yours.
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It's still a false analogy because I derive immense benefits from my tax money, even if 100% of it does not go to programs that directly benefit me.
By contrast, I derive zero benefit from Comcast's wifi service.
I have a cellular phone with unlimited data. I have absolutely no use for someone else's wifi as my 4G service is much more reliable in the US than Comcast and Comcast is not even a service provider in most of the countries I travel to.
Furthermore, I wouldn't use it anyway as the connection is not s
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Simply detach the antenna, and optionally fit a terminator to completely kill the signal.
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I detached Comcast instead and got a better ISP.
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Not mention the potential liability issues.
I can easily see the cops kicking in my door because somebody used the hotspot in my house to download kiddie porn or copyrighted files.
Does anyone really think the cops are going to differentiate between the public side and private side of the router? No, they're going to call (or subpoena) Comcast for the address where that router lives. My house.
Yeah, it'll probably get straightened out, eventually, after I get dragged away in handcuffs to the amusement of my
Re:Service in exchange for a free modem? (Score:4, Informative)
why is this being modded up? you have to login to xfinitywifi access points which gives them tracability.
this entire post is FUD
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Do you know any cops? Any feds? (I'm speaking of USA-ians; other places might be different, but Comcast doesn't live there.) Subtlety is not their strong point. Arrest everybody and let the courts straighten it out is what they do.
Sure, they're going to get the person who used the credentials to log in. And the address where they logged in from. And then the scenario I just described happens.
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Oh look, more FUD.
Do you know what a chain of custody is? How the courts work? What the difference between hard evidence, and hearsay is?
Arrest everybody and let the courts straighten it out is what they do.
Yes, that results in whats called "dismissed, with prejudice". I mean, if the cops wanted to waste a ton of time and potentially get slapped down for it, they could do that.
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They'll probably also confiscate any computing equipment in your home on the idea it may have been used by whoever logged into the network and used it for illegal activities (they'll ignore that said equipment already had access to your network, so there would be no reason to log in to the free hotspot).
Good luck getting that equipment back. Oh, and better hope you don't have any copyright infringing files laying around on it when they do take it.
Re:Service in exchange for a free modem? (Score:4)
The word is 'American'. 'USA-ian' is a nonsense word trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
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The GP post is more an indictment on the mob^w justice system that all too often seems to presume guilt before evidence beyond a reasonable doubt is required.
It also goes both ways. You may need to login to these systems to identify yourself, but when doing so you'd sure hope your transport stream was completely protected from the owner of the router. Otherwise, you may find someone kicking down your door when you arrive back home.
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The GP post is more an indictment on the mob^w justice system that all too often seems to presume guilt before evidence beyond a reasonable doubt is required.
Sounded more like the rant of a paranoid tinfoil hat wearer. That or given that hotspots are not a newfangled invention he should have no problem finding dozens of small businesses or hotels that got raided because they offered internet access.
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Re:Service in exchange for a free modem? (Score:5, Informative)
It is not a public and open WIFI hotspot.
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This system has Comcast's authentication, vs. your regular WIFI has the usual WPA or whatever protocol, you lose or share either, you could be in for abuse.
If you are stupid enough to use WEP authentication that's the channel going to be abused, not the Comcast one :)
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What the hell? I have used this, the wifi access point identifies as XFINITY, you have to login using your comcast account, and the IP you end up using is an IP block dedicated to XFINITY (which clearly identifies in every possible way (rdns, whois) as an XFINITY IP). You dont even share the IP with the host (who gets the usual Comcast IP). There is no way the host would get busted for it. Please stop the FUD.
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How is this post even relevant? The only way a cop will know how and who's door to 'bust down' would be through your ISP, and be damn sure that the ISP knows which IP's are being used by whom. Centsational much? I mean, one of my neighbours could be downloading child porn as we speak so I could randomly be arrested for absolutely no reason.
more like $8-$10 mo to rent and have cable phone? (Score:2)
more like $8-$10 mo to rent and have cable phone?
if you have cable phone you are just about forced to rent it.
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If you spend time in an urban area, basically anything remotely "downtown" then it is a BIG win.
This must depend on which urban area you live in. In mine, this is not a big win at all. It's a bit pointless, since you're almost always in range of a public wifi hotspot anyway.
I parted way with Comcast a long time ago. (Score:2)
$65 a month for 110 Mbs internet rather than the $150 I was paying Comcast for 50 Mbs internet that rarely did much better than 10 Mbs.
And the company actually send techs out the same day for most problems instead of Comcast, which can take weeks.
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Spill. Who the hell are you with?
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I pay $55/mo for 200+ Mbps, but the availability is pretty limited.
http://webpass.net/ [webpass.net]
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http://www.astound.net/ [astound.net]
Only in certain parts of the Bay Area right now.
It's EPB (Score:2)
Why use Comcast's modem at all? (Score:5, Informative)
They charge you eight bucks a month for the privilege of using their modem. You can buy your own from Amazon for less than you'll pay Comcast for a year's rental - and that's for a DOCSIS 3 modem that handles IPv6 just fine, even with Comcast.
Here's the one I bought - it's $68 [amazon.com]. It doesn't include wifi, so you'll have to bring your own wifi base - but those can be had cheaply as well. Plus you don't have to replace both functions just because one or the other craps out...
It's also a much better idea to separate things (Score:2)
Which you can do if you buy your own.
Those all-in-ones are trouble in two big ways:
1) Failure due to heat. When you start trying to jam all the components in to one box, it gets hot. They can't go for a big case or fans or something like that, because consumers won't like it. So they run hot, and tend to fail sooner. No guarantees of course, but my informal observation shows that separate units work for longer.
2) Limited and expensive upgrade path. If one component of the system is outdated and you want to
put it in bridge mode (Score:4, Insightful)
If you call Comcast's customer service, they can put their new routers into bridge mode. This turns off its WiFi and other unnecessary features and makes it act like their old routers.
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If you call Comcast's customer service, they can put their new routers into bridge mode. This turns off its WiFi and other unnecessary features and makes it act like their old routers.
The fact that you have to call Comcast's customer support to change between router & bridge mode is a serious PIA. I got called in to provide tech support for some people we volunteer with and was stuck waiting for over an hour to make a simple configuration change. This is after previous calls getting dropped because the call center reps couldn't manage to transfer me to the appropriate (or even wrong) departments.
Power usage seems unrelated to Xfinity (Score:3)
Comcast engineer here (Score:4, Interesting)
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Skype will continue to work. It doesn't care what addresses are used for the management interface, and it doesn't care that you have a dual-stack network -- it just ignores the v6 side. Skype is only a problem if you remove the v4, but you don't need to remove your v4 to deploy v6.
(Or it can be made to work with 464XLAT, if you really want to run a v6-only access network.)
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Yeah, don't bother with that. Deploy v6 now, move to CGNAT for v4 when you have to (possibly soonish), and then worry about anything else much later.
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Similar anecdote here, but a DOT engineer in our state was forced out when he complimented [go.com] his agency on their response to a major storm. After the (predictable) public outcry, along with some lawyers offering to take up the case as he may not have even violated the rules, they doubled-down on ruining this guy's life by revealing things from his past disciplinary record that had already been addressed in order to try and vilify him in the press.
Moral: Even if you have only nice and helpful things to say, d
Not hot stuff (Score:2)
In France, all major operators have been offering for years a public WiFi service, using their customer's modems.
The feature was pioneered by an operator called Free (with its well known "Freebox" Linux-based modem), and others had to offer the same. Free may buy T-mobile [slashdot.org], which should seriously push Comcast to fix its problem.
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, they already have all the power over your connection. What are you talking about?
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it's more difficult if you have your own modem..
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No, its not. They generally have root access even if its your modem.
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Except that the public wifi doesnt go over the same channels and is not added to your data usage. It is essentially a different network.