Comcast announced plans to turn wireless Internet routers in homes into Wi-Fi hotspots that are available to the public.
The plan is part of the company's mission to offer both customers and non-customers access to around 8 million Wi-Fi hotspots that are spread out across 19 of the biggest cities in the U.S. The millions of Wi-Fi hotspots may also form the foundation for a wireless phone network, which Comcast would use to compete with carriers such as AT&T.
The free Wi-Fi service, named 'Xfinity WiFi,' is named after the company's cable services. Xfinity WiFi was launched earlier this year to about 1,000 customers within New Jersey, and has since then expanded to about 100,000 customers in other areas of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., with an additional 50,000 customers in Houston lately added to the network. Comcast also said that the service will be rolled out in Denver "very soon" and in California "in the next month or so," according to Comcast communications director for California Bryan Byrd.
Xfinity WiFi is free for Comcast's cable service subscribers. Non-subscribers can still connect to Xfinity WiFi, but at a limited usage of twice per month and only one hour per connection.
"WiFi is an important part of our strategy to be the place where customers connect all devices, anywhere and at any time," said Comcast Cable's senior vice president of business development Tom Nagel.
Comcast subscribers, however, may be uncomfortable with how the company is looking to turn the routers located inside their home into parts of a public network. As per PCMag, the four issues getting the most concerns are increased security threat, higher electricity bills, slower performance and overstepping customer rights.
However, despite these concerns, Comcast said that less than 1 percent of its subscribers chose to opt out of activating Xfinity WiFi.
"To date, the home hotspot has been well received where it has rolled out," said Byrd.
The company addresses these issues separately, saying that there is no added security threat because the Xfinity WiFi is a different network from the personal network of subscribers. Subscribers should also not be concerned of higher electric bills and slower performance.
Comcast may be overstepping customer rights though, as the company does not ask for approval from subscribers before turning on the service. In addition, though Comcast says that subscribers can opt out of the service at any time, there seems to be difficulties for subscribers to be able to do so.
About 3 million of the Wi-Fi hotspots in the Xfinity WiFi network are expected to be activated within the week.
