UK BEWARE!
Virginmedia is starting to use your wifi as a publicly accessible wifi hotspot
arstechnica.co.uk
This same shit was tried by Comcast in the USA where they were sued in open court by users who claimed the company was fraudulently using customers electricity and profiting at their customers expense on that basis
fastcompany.com
cant you just disable the remote management features of the modem/router and turn that off or physically remove the antennas and/or wifi module from it?
Their competitor BT has done this since forever.
I doubt that. The wireless is controlled
by the router operating system, they disable some commands, so even if you telnet into the router you wont be able to disable it
even if you switch it so that its ethernet only and put your own router behind it
you will only switch off one antenna - the other will be used for their public wifi hotspot
vodafone and others do that for years.
they use the wifi router you rent from them to spawn a network ("vodafone home"). they promote that in tv spots ("wifi everywhere you go"). it's literally theft.
same poster here
just had a thought - i wonder if i physically disconnect the wifi antenna will this stop ethernet working hehehehe
and if they force that shit on me - i will try that
you could just cover the antenna with foil
Freedom is for faggots anyway
Aluminum foil might slightly enhance any signal. It won't block shit.
is this a fucking joke?
Chances are that the antenna won't be soldered directly onto the board, so just spend 5 minutes with a screwdriver and unplug it inside. It might even just be possible to unscrew it.
buy your own modem. I'm glad comcast does it to the normies who don't even use all their bandwidth. its nice to have internet everywhere I go.
>download cp and torrent freely
>zero legal responsibility since isp let's everyone use my wifi
what a time to be alive
it's not anyone.you can use a free hour trial but you need to put in any email address and agree to the terms or use the comcast login. either way they will have all the logs and can tell who it is on the network
Just put their AP in a Faraday cage.
This
Bump
>throwaway email doesn't exist
I tried to imply that with any. But by doing so you're agreeing to their terms of service.
BT does this with their openzone hotspots. Pretty nice if you have a by account as WiFi hotspots are everywhere. I don't see the problem here.
Why do people in France, the UK and other places refuse to install their own wireless routers and let their ISP do it for them? They're like $20 and so easy to install a kid could do it. Why would you let your ISP control that part of your internet connection as well?
Sadly no
They're everywhere, you can't escape them
Wat do? Flash my router with openwrt?
They force their router on customers by not disclosing the needed logins for their networks.
I use my own router. There are no rules against that.
openwrt is kinda iffy now that they split into two things. You should definitely run custom firmwares if you can though.
Luckily in this country that has more than 1 ISP for an entire state and I can choose another ISP at a similar price and cost.
A good thing too that we also have regulations meaning that if all our isps started doing this shit they would get slapping down from the regulatory bodies.
BT has done this forever but you're able to choose not to participate, I assume Virgin will offer a similar option.
Don't count on it. Not Virgin the faggots.
thank god Centurylink doesn't pull this shit or shentel
BT already do this. Noone cares. It's convenient for users to be able to access hotspots wherever they go.
The argument about using customers electricity is bullshit as the router won't consume any more power than it already does
They arent routers they are cable modems
in the case of Virgin Media
the fact that you have your own router is irrelevant. The cable ISP's in Britain insist on installing their modems. The modems have a router component within them and two wireless antenna. Regardless of whether you setup your own router behind that they will keep their wireless antenna active even if you switch the modem router to ethernet only
router is isp's property. you can't do shit on it
I don't understand, can't you just use your own router?
Why is this even an issue?
Let retards who rent their router from their ISP get jerked around as free wifi spots.
>using the CPE
you chose your path.
*installs dd-wrt*
Heh, nothing personell kid
Buy your own gateway you bum.
>download cp
>care about TOSes
Choose 1
Unitymedia in Germany tried doing that shit. You could send them a letter to fuck off tho to opt out of it. Got massive criticism too.
You can opt out, I did it yesterday. It's an option the website under my account.
>It's an option the website
and not your router? Wtf
american here, I suspect that my isp is trying to do sorta the same thing.
The router they provide me has different user accounts. The account I have is "admin" but I dont have the ability to change my wifi password, and information regarding 5ghz isnt available.
I have a feeling the manager or boss has a list of all of the 5ghz passwords for my city and can drive around and have blazing fast internet wherever he goes
also
>have badnwith cap
>mfw isps are trying to let everyone in the neighborhood blow through your data allowance
Ive been to cities where the streetlights or something all had wifi in them and it was available to the public.
Ziggo does this in the Netherlands. Nobody complains because now we have Wi-Fi everywhere and it's awesome.
claim you or virgin got hacked
have them prove otherwise
>using a router that you got from your ISP
literally fuck off this board, all of you
You are cancer that is killing Sup Forums
you are the retard that should go back to plebbit
5ghz won't pass through more than 2-3 walls, and it doesn't go that far
your theory is fucking retarded
also, stop using the router your isp gives you, you fucking mong
>on a technology board
>without even a surface level knowledge of technology
wow! back to plebbit, bitchtits
>live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere
>people would have to literally enter my property to access my network
I guess being a country hick has its perks too.
Use [email protected] for the email and change your mac every time.
Is it bound by your ISP or the router?
Couldn't you just replace your router with a 3rd party one?
Really now.
A whole lot of USPs in Europe do that. In case of mine (UPC), you can opt-out on their website, but you're also opting-out of being able to use the hotspot network as a client.
Also: your "home" and "public" wifi in this scenario are two completely separated networks and the traffic on the latter is supposed not to affect the bandwidth your contract guarantees, so the only downside is extra electricity and radio waves.
>replacing the router
Against the terms of contract for 99% residential-tier connections. You literally have to ask your ISP for permission first and they may or may not agree (UPC usually does).
Some companies do this in Japan.
It was great. My first two months here while waiting to get my own fiber installed was living off this free Internet.
Probably also handy they don't have data caps, so all you could really complain about was someone using up part of your bandwidth.
> Against the terms of contract for 99% residential-tier connections
I thought there must be something like that in UK. What's the point of letting people of the hook if you can datamine them.
>so the only downside is extra electricity
It's probably not even a noticeable difference in electricity. The router is running anyway isn't it? Your router is not under a significantly higher load to manage two wireless networks rather than one, so CPU usage won't be much higher.
its a modem router combo. Im not the one in control of the internet account, and the person that is likes to intentionally waste their money on stupid shit than to make a decent investment in something that cost less and performs better.
Also I see plenty of 5ghz signals around, your response is fucking retarded.
>you can literally opt out on your Virgin Media account page you fat fucking retards
Was about to say the same. If you opt in then you can us btopenzone, whuch for me is handy as one of the places I have to work at doesnt have internet setup there so I use the openzone
They've done this for a while in Portugal. At least I know NOS does, but you can turn it off.
Nobody fucking cares op. I'm a BT customer and having access to WiFi literally anywhere without having to deal with the consequences of having my contact info passed on to scammers by every other "free" WiFi provider is a godsend.
I'm not going to complain because it's a novel idea that is just making use of unused resources and is essentially pro-consumer.
Why should I care OP?
set the "modem router combo" to pass-through mode, disable wifi, use your own router
>Also I see plenty of 5ghz signals around, your response is fucking retarded.
just because you see the signal doesn't mean you'll get "blazing fast speeds", you fucking
>The router is running anyway isn't it?
my god, the retardation knows no limits here. it eats more electricity when the radio is actually sending/receiving data. back to plebbit with you
>I can't make a single sentence without using an ad-hominem
Really gotta grasp at straws if you're gonna complain about the extra two cents on your power bill for the benefit of getting wifi everywhere.
>sacrifing your bandwidth and power to help ISPs expand their tracking network
they should get their own fucking wifi
i don't want to use this feature, i don't want to connect to others' router
i don't care if it's extra hundreds of dollars or two cents on my bill, you can go suck a dick
>>I can't make a single sentence without using an ad-hominem
>I don't have anything to counter his points, so i'll just complain about the ad-hominem
>complaining about le fallacy
You can turn that off via the website customer login.
Go to your package or features or something and turn if off. I turned it off yesterday when I was paying my bills.
They give you extra bandwidth, just to ensure that it doesn't actually affect your own network. I genuinely don't give a shit; my ISP has my address, credit card and likely more. If you "care" so much just opt out.
Then opt out you fucking autist.
What is there to counter? It's a program that if you personally don't want to be a part of you can opt out of, no need to complain on Sup Forums.