Except comcast has datacaps for total transfer per month.

I don't use comcast so I do not personally know if they charge for excessive data usage, but I know cox does.

Besides the point of potential cost, why should a user who is paying for the service subsidize comcast. They are not getting a discount for offering the wifi to customers.

Funny enough, I tend to avoid these type of discussions because surprise surprise, I got downvoted and they didn't even answer the core question.

Why should a customer pay to add value to comcast? They aren't getting a discount if they enable the service.

Do you know the public access point data is being attributed to customers' usage totals? Or does that just seem like the sort of thing they'd do?

Well, if it weren't I would connect everything I own to that guest access point and bypass my cap completely. Or perhaps the speed of that connection is very slow. But then it wouldn't be much use to other customers either.

When you connect to an 'xfinitywifi' SSID, you have to authenticate with your comcast credentials. The usage is then tracked as yours, not whose-ever hotspot you hit.

Last I saw, this wasn't actually being counted vs. datacaps for either the roaming user or the host.

This works and you can do it today. You actually can get faster than your current service plan (assuming you aren't at the top-tier already) if you have a linux router you can set up for dual-wan.

Last I played with it, I could get an additional 35-40mbps or so out of a typical 100/25 comcast connection in my area.

The data used by other customers on Xfinity wifi does not count against your data cap

> Except comcast has datacaps for total transfer per month.

For you. Not the public wifi network that is served before it hits your LAN. This is what I meant by my original post - there are tons of misconceptions on this.

Your ratelimit is not effected either, at least not any more than your neighbors do who exist on the same headend as you.

> why should a user who is paying for the service subsidize comcast.

How is it subsidizing Comcast again? I just don't see this point - the only possible way you are subsidizing it is with increased spectrum usage (which is a valid point) and perhaps additional power usage - but we're talking pennies per year if it's even measureable.

Tower space? This sort of product wouldn't exist without it.

I think it's confusion on where customers think or feel the demarc is. The ethernet port on the modem is your demarc, not the cable entering your house. If Comcast did something to alter and/or impact traffic after

> They are not getting a discount for offering the wifi to customers.

Of course they are? You get access to everyone else running the same AP in their homes, so when I travel I don't have to worry much about broadband access. It's especially great at airbnbs with broken internet - I can simply use the neighbors xfinity AP. It's actually an incredibly consumer-friendly thing we used to speculate on in the late 90's and early 00's when wifi was just starting to become a thing.

I do agree it should be something you can toggle in a user interface, but turning it off should remove your access from the xfinity wifi pool. I also completely understand why it's not optional - due to the ignorance shown in the thread. Most consumers think that me torrenting on the Xfinititywifi AP is somehow impacting their data cap and/or throughput. It's not, and even highly technical people continue to perpetuate this myth.

I'm about as anti comcast as they come - but this is one of the better more consumer friendly things any ISP has done, much less Comcast.

> Except comcast has datacaps for total transfer per month.

The extra access point doesn't count towards your data cap.

What are the odds the extra Javascript / altered data packets are going towards a person's data cap?