Latest from Next TV in Hotspots

Comcast and Charter Open 12K WiFi Hotspots Ahead of Hurricane Florence

daniel.frankel@futurenet.com (Daniel Frankel) — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 15:28:59 +0000

Comcast and Charter Communications said they're collectively opening more than 12,000 Wi-Fi hotspots to non-subscribers across Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina ahead of Hurricane Florence.

Comcast will open about 7,000 hotspots in Savannah and Augusta, Georgia, as well as Charleston, South Carolina.

Charter said it will open 5,100 hotspots in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Comcast has a map of Xfinity WiFi hotspots at www.Xfinity.com/wifi. The cable company said it’s girding its facilities for the pending disaster, bringing in extra generators and fuel trucks, in addition to more technical support staff.

Charter's map can be found at https://www.spectrum.com/wifi-hotspots.

“It’s critical that impacted residents are able to communicate during challenging weather events such as Hurricane Florence,” said Doug Guthrie, regional senior VP for Comcast, in a statement.

With Hurricane Florence baring down on the Southeast, the governors of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia have declared a state of emergency.

However, the storm’s wind speeds declined markedly early Thursday morning, and the hurricane has been downgraded to Category 2. It had grown in size, though, and the National Weather Service warned "this will likely be the storm of a lifetime for portions of the Carolina coast."

Ruckus Claims Role in Facebook's Express Wi-Fi Partner Expansion

daniel.frankel@futurenet.com (Daniel Frankel) — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 16:08:20 +0000

Ruckus Networks announced that it is providing its virtual SmartZone controllers and certified indoor/outdoor Wi-Fi access points in the expansion of a Facebook-led partner program aimed at building public Wi-Fi across Africa, India, and Indonesia.

The partner program is part of an expansion of Facebook’s Express Wi-Fi initiative, which is seeks to connect more individuals across the globe to the internet. Under Express Wi-Fi, local business owners install Wi-Fi hotspots, with high-speed internet services provided by local ISPs, mobile network operators and other Facebook broadband service partners.

The new vendor-focused partner programd within Express Wi-Fi not only initially includes Arris’ Ruckus Wireless unit, but also Arista, Cambium Networks--access point manufactures are being brought in to build Express Wi-Fi devices.

"We are committed to providing connectivity to people in the most remote areas of the world," said Ian Whiting, president of Ruckus Networks, in a statement. "We are excited to be a partner in Facebook's Express Wi-Fi Certified program, which is another important step in bridging the digital divide, giving individuals access to high-performance Wi-Fi networks. Ruckus strives to connect the unconnected, and we look forward to an ongoing partnership with Facebook.”

The Ruckus products featured in the Express Wi-Fi deployment include the company’s adaptive antenna BeamFlex technology. The patented technique aims to increase connection quality and range, delivering better voice and data communication and significantly improving power efficiency.

"Express Wi-Fi is part of Facebook's initiative to help bring more people online globally," said Guy Mordecai, Facebook’s product lead for Express Wi-Fi. "We're excited to launch the Express Wi-Fi Certified program and have Ruckus as one of our initial partners. With this program, we hope to expand the Express Wi-Fi ecosystem and work with partners like Ruckus to help bring affordable Wi-Fi solutions to emerging markets."

Comcast Feels Heat Over Home Hotspots

Jeff Baumgartner — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Comcast’s plan to light up quasi-public WiFi hotspots in millions of DOCSIS gateways in customer homes is being challenged in court.

A lawsuit claims the MSO is launching “homespots”— WiFi hotspots created by turning up secondary “XfinityWiFi” signals in home broadband routers so the signals are accessible to other credentialed Comcast customers when they’re roaming — “without first obtaining authorization.” The suit claims the program poses security risks and degrades broadband performance.

The suit, filed Dec. 4 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Cal ifornia by two plaintiffs — Comcast subscribers Toyer Grear and Joycelyn Harris — are seeking classaction status, arguing in part that Comcast’s homespot approach violates the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

“Without authorization to do so, Comcast uses the wireless routers it supplies to its customers to generate additional, public Wi-Fi networks for its own benefit,” the suit claims.

The Comcast homespots are currently set up as “opt-out,” meaning that the routers support the practice by default. Some Comcast customers, however, have said on the DSL Reports message boards that it’s difficult to stay out of the program, even after they’ve opted out. Whenever Comcast issues firmware changes to its routers, the devices revert back to the default state of broadcasting the secondary Xfinity WiFi signal. Consequently, those customers report they’ve kept the default settings to avoid the hassle.

Comcast, which aims to deploy 8 million WiFi hotspots by the end of 2014 via routers installed in homes and commercial venues, disputed the suit’s claims, holding that its homeas- a-hotspot program is beneficial to customers and that subscribers have always had the ability to turn off the capability.

“We disagree with the allegations in this lawsuit and believe our Xfinity WiFi home hotspot program provides real benefits to our customers,” a Comcast spokesman said in a statement. “We provide information to our customers about the service and how they can easily turn off the public WiFi hotspot if they wish.”

Comcast announced its neighborhood WiFi hotspot initiative in June 2013.

Comcast’s WiFi FAQ notes that the gateway’s private and public-facing SSIDs use separate service flows and “therefore anticipate minimal impact to the in-home WiFi network.” The document acknowledges, however, that WiFi, which is a shared resource, could be subject to “some impact as more devices share the network.” Data usage via the secondary SSID does not get applied to the home customer’s monthly totals.

The lawsuit’s plaintiffs also claim that Comcast’s homespot program opens subscribers up to security risks and pushes power costs to them; they also predict Comcast will use the secondary WiFi signals to build out a wireless/mobile service that can compete with cellular carriers.

The Comcast FAQ notes that customer credentials are protected by 128-bit encryption on the sign-in page, “the same standard used by thousands of online banking and financial services around the world.”

Regarding power consumption, the suit cites a Speedify test purportedly showing that heavy use of homespots could boost the router’s electrical costs by up to 40%.

Comcast has not announced plans to use its WiFi network as a rival to cellular offerings, but there has been plenty of speculation that the cable industry could pursue so-called “WiFi-first” services that prefer WiFi and use cellular as a backup. In October, Craig Moffett, partner and senior analyst with MoffettNathanson, suggested that cable is “best positioned” to reap the benefits of such a strategy.

Like Comcast, Cablevision Systems has introduced a similar homespot strategy. The Comcast lawsuits, though, could cause other MSOs to put similar initiatives on hold until the cases are resolved.

Cable WiFi Starts Its Global March

Jeff Baumgartner — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 12:00:00 +0000

Showcasing cable’s potential to create and power a global wireless-broadband network, Comcast and Liberty Global last week became the first operators to carve out a roaming agreement that covers hot spot s deployed in the U.S. and several parts of Europe.

Early on the deal is poised to give the MSOs’ broadband customers free access to more than 10 million hotspots. Comcast plans to have 8 million “Xfinity WiFi” hotspots up by year’s end, while Liberty Global expects to have 2.5 million of their own nailed up by that time in several European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Poland and Switzerland.

Comcast and Liberty Global, which uses a client-based WiFi authentication and security system, expect to trial the shared WiFi service later this year and to offer it broadly in 2015.

The roaming deal between Comcast and Liberty Global currently uses a settlement-free model, meaning no money changes hands regardless of how much WiFi data cable subscribers consume while they are roaming, according to Tom Nagel, Comcast’s senior vice president of strategic initiatives.

“Our expectation is that it [traffic] will be fairly balanced,” Nagel said, noting that the MSOs will give the arrangement time to operate on a settlement-free basis before visiting whether a compensation- based model should be applied.

Hotspots tied into the roaming agreement include those deployed in outdoor venues, in select business locations and, increasingly, in wireless gateways deployed in customer homes that emit a separate signal accessible to those credentialed broadband customers who encounter them. That latter setup, sometimes referred to as a “community hotspot,” has been popular in Europe for years. It is now starting to make inroads in the U.S. with operators such as Comcast and Cablevision Systems, which has already deployed more than 1 million “Optimum WiFi ” hotspots.

Cable operators have historically used their WiFi networks as a free perk for their broadband customers, billing them as an alternative to cellular services that are usually encumbered with small data caps. Some believe the industry has the potential to create a “WiFi-first” voice service that uses cellular connectivity as a fallback.

Last week’s agreement spotlights a region that is popular among U.S. citizens. According to the U.S. International Trade Administration’s Office of Travel & Tourism Industries, 11.4 million Americans traveled to Europe in 2013.

Balan Nair, Liberty Global’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, said in a statement that the MSO hoped the Comcast deal would “create interest from other cable operators to join us.”

So far, none of the other MSOs that are part of the “Cable WiFi” roaming alliance in the U.S. — Cablevision, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks — have hopped on board. That group, which includes Comcast, has deployed more than 250,000 quasi-public hotspots that are part of the roaming pact.

While the agreement with Liberty Global provides free access to Comcast’s WiFi network, Comcast has also been testing a paid model with two Asian carriers — Japan’s KDDI and Taiwan Mobile. In those trials, customers of those providers pay a negotiated per-minute rate when they tap into Comcast’s U.S. WiFi network.