Comcast’s latest modem and routers broadcast a separate public network in addition to your home WiFi, essentially meaning that your electricity bills are racking up in order for others to access the Internet.
A Change.org petition has been recirculating since a Reddit post noting how Comcast is piggybacking off its customers for its own monetary value reached the front page of the site, with the petition reading: “It’s time to tell Comcast that enough is enough… if they want to use your home to give Internet access to other users, they should compensate you with extra speed.”
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Speaking to Arstechnica, Comcast spokesperson Joel Shadle stated that any electricity usage would be “minimal at most,” though it’s been noted that even if Comcast is adding pennies to its users’ electricity bills, they should not be passed over to the consumer and this may even lead to a lawsuit.
The petition was created a few weeks ago, attracting 114 supporters. It reads as follows:
To:
Comcast
Your recent initiative to roll out a nationwide public WiFi network by broadcasting a second wireless hotspot from millions of customers’ homes is simply unfair. Individual households may pay over $20 per year in extra electricity to host a piece of your public network. You’ve already announced that this new initiative will be in millions of homes by the end of 2014, and that translates to a Comcast public WiFi that’s being directly subsidized by your own customers to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Your customers pay you for fast Internet service, and we think it’s only fair that you give us a 7 Mbps speed boost commensurate with what we’re paying to help roll out your new nationwide public WiFi.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
Comcast responded to the petition’s creator, saying that the company was “testing with newer equipment,” though the results of these tests haven’t been revealed.
