Comcast to turn your home into WiFi hotspot

Two days ago, Comcast turned 50,000 residential Xfinity modems in Houston into public WiFi hotspots. On Wednesday, the company activated another 3 million residential hotspots nationwide, in cities like Indianapolis and Philadelphia. Comcast began activating the equivalent of 'guest mode' on Arris Touchstone Telephony Wireless Gateway Modems that the company has been supplying to newer customers effectively turning the routers into local WiFi hotspots. The hotspots can be accessed by any other Comcast broadband customer for an unlimited amount of time. Comcast says the hotspot - which appears as "xfinitywifi" to those searching for a Wi-Fi connection - is completely separate from the home network. Someone accessing the Net through the hotspot can't get to the computers, printers, mobile devices, streaming boxes and more sitting on the host network. What's interesting about "xfinitywifi" is that 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.

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