Comcast Responds to Hotspot Lawsuit

"Our Xfinity WiFi home hotspot program provides real benefits to our customers."

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We told you this morning that Comcast is being sued in federal court over its Xfinity Wi-Fi hotspot program, which piggybacks on customers’ residential routers to provide Internet service to other customers who are out and about.

Late this afternoon, the company sent a statement to Philly Mag on the subject:

“We disagree with the allegations in this lawsuit and believe our Xfinity WiFi home hotspot program provides real benefits to our customers,” the company said in the release. “We provide information to our customers about the service and how they can easily turn off the public WiFi hotspot if they wish http://wifi.comcast.com/faqs.html.”

A couple of highlights from those FAQs.

Q: Does the new Home Hotspot impact my Internet speeds or data usage? A: The broadband connection to your home will be unaffected by the new feature. For your in-home WiFi network, we have provisioned the XFINITY WiFi feature to support robust usage, and therefore anticipate minimal impact to the in-home WiFi network. As with any shared medium, there can be some impact as more devices share the network. For data usage, the activities of visiting users are associated with the visitors’ accounts and therefore do not impact the homeowner Q: Is Xfinity WiFi secure? A: Comcast is committed to making your WiFi experience as fast, fun and safe as possible. Whenever you sign in, we help protect your privacy and the safety of your Comcast Email or username and password by providing 128-bit encryption on the sign-in page. This is the same standard used by thousands of online banking and financial services sites around the world to protect your critical transactions. However, for the most secure online experience possible, be safe and smart.