Will Comcast?s free hotspots cost subscribers?

Last month Speed Matters reported on Comcast’s use of individual and business routers to provide hotspots for any nearby Comcast subscriber. Comcast assured customers that there would be no drop in bandwidth or Internet speed; that the hotspot was on a separate circuit.

What Comcast didn’t mention was simple electric power consumption. So, Internet provider Speedify conducted an experiment recently. An engineer at their Philadelphia headquarters measured the power consumption on a standard business router that was being used as a public hotspot. The result?

A hotspot router will cost subscribers an additional $1.90 a month, or $22.80 a year.

Comcast is asking Speedify to retest with newer equipment. But the warning is clear: free usually just means someone else is paying.

Comcast expanding Wi-Fi hotspots using home routers (Speed Matters, Jun. 25, 2014)
 
Is Your Comcast Public Hotspot Costing you Real Money? (Speedify blog, Jul., 2014)