31–40 of 148 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
His connection is probably throttled. This essentially doubles his throttled bandwidth.
Having worked with deployment of these networks (DOCCIS 3) for a Comcast subsidiary I can tell you this is not true. If you have 10Mb the non-guest network is prioritized. But you cannot use more than 10Mbit between the two. As stated, the author has doubled nothing.
What the author doesn't realize is he's doubled nothing. DOCCIS networks are shared mediums. That means you have to double bandwidth by increasing the number of channels you have. Newer DOCCIS modema are already bonding channels today. Most commonly 4 channel bond on the downstream and 2 on the up. By connecting to the cable modem twice, via two different routes, does nothing to change the available bandwidth availab…
The author is doing this against his neighbour's modem. He isn't connecting to the same modem twice. You seem to be dripping misplaced condescension all over the floor - would you like me to fetch a mop?
I don't see any benchmarks, did I miss them? I suspect this doesn't double bandwidth, the packets all end up over the same neighborhood network. The only way it would increase bandwidth is if it evades artificial throttles. Having two connections to the same (neighborhood) pipe seems useless.
Possibility two: placebo effect.
Doesn't the xfinitiwifi inject ads MITM-style? I recall seeing some weird html overlays with xfinity ads on random web pages last time I browsed over one of these SSIDs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author is doing this against his neighbour's modem. He isn't connecting to the same modem twice. You seem to be dripping misplaced condescension all over the floor - would you like me to fetch a mop?
I'd suggest you reread the article.
When you rent a cable modem/router combo from Comcast (as one of my nearby neighbors apparently does)
The article definitely implies that he's connecting to his neighbour's Comcast router.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author is doing this against his neighbour's modem. He isn't connecting to the same modem twice. You seem to be dripping misplaced condescension all over the floor - would you like me to fetch a mop?
I'd suggest you reread the article.
> When you rent a cable modem/router combo from Comcast (as one of my nearby neighbors apparently does)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
His connection is probably throttled. This essentially doubles his throttled bandwidth.
Having worked with deployment of these networks (DOCCIS 3) for a Comcast subsidiary I can tell you this is not true. If you have 10Mb the non-guest network is prioritized. But you cannot use more than 10Mbit between the two. As stated, the author has doubled nothing.
> Does the new Home Hotspot impact my Internet speeds or data usage?
> The broadband connection to your home will be unaffected by the new feature.
Doesn't sound consistent with the prioritization claim since prioritization still implies the speed may be affected by the guest network. If you're right, then that's kind of a bold (misleading) thing for Comcast to say in their FAQ.
If the author is doing this by using the neighbor's WiFi (as mentioned in some other comments), then I don't see how this has anything to do with XFINITY WiFi specifically, or any loopholes - stealing bandwidth from a neighbor could be done (in theory) with any open/accessible WiFi connection of a neighbor.
This is all well and good until you start doing anything with address sensitive replies. For example a VoIP call would need some way of anchoring the packets to a specific connection for the duration of the call (some kind of session pinning would be ideal). I like the idea but I wonder how it performs on many use cases (like Skype or online gaming).
routing should be 'sticky' to an ip address; connections to any given ip address should use the same outbound route for the duration of that connection. from http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/mwan3 Linux outgoing network traffic load-balancing is performed on a per-IP connection basis – it is not channel-bonding, where a single connection (e.g. a single download) will use multiple WAN connections simultaneously
I can still easily imagine a conflict where your signaling IP and your media IP are different in VoIP, but binding connections to IP addresses is pretty reasonable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having worked with deployment of these networks (DOCCIS 3) for a Comcast subsidiary I can tell you this is not true. If you have 10Mb the non-guest network is prioritized. But you cannot use more than 10Mbit between the two. As stated, the author has doubled nothing.
You can if you use the neighbor's guest connection.
Again, he's not doubling his bandwidth based on the above and a whole host of other reasons beyond these.
For those who try I'd say post true bandwitdh and latency test comparisons using multiple sessions that are shown using both links. Its actually pretty funny to me, having been in network engineering for well over a decade, that people are so passionate that they're sticking it to Comcast and "doubling" bandwidth with nothing to back it up. But, whatever floats your boat.