1. Home
  2. General Telecommunications Forum
  3. A Convenient, Mysterious Service From Cable Companies [telecom]

A Convenient, Mysterious Service From Cable Companies [telecom]

April 22, 2010 A Convenient, Mysterious Service From Cable Companies By DAVID POGUE

A year ago, I wrote about how Cablevision, my cable company, had quietly begun installing Wi-Fi hot spots all over its market area: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. These hot spots began popping up in all the public areas: shopping centers, main streets, train stations, parks, marinas and sports complexes. The best part: these hot spots are free to anyone who subscribes to Internet service from Cablevision at home.

Over the year, the signal has only gotten better. In my Connecticut town, it's absolutely amazing how often that "Optimum Wi-Fi" hot spot shows up on my menu bar, ready for free connecting. Once you've introduced your gadget to the network (laptop, app phone like a BlackBerry or an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad), you never have to log in again. No name, password or Web page login screen. You're just always online, wherever you go in town.

Meanwhile, other big cable companies have been installing free Wi-Fi networks for their own customers.

This is all good news-but not as good as the announcement that landed last week. Starting now, any New York, New Jersey or Connecticut customer of Cablevision, Time Warner or Comcast can use any of those companies' hot spots.

In other words, I, a Cablevision customer, can now use all of Time Warner's and Comcast's hot spots in these three states. If you have Time Warner's Road Runner service at home, you're now welcome to hop onto Cablevision's Optimum hot spots wherever you find them, or Comcast's Xfinity hot spots. And so on. It's as though all three companies have merged for the purpose of accommodating your Wi-Fi gadget, hugely multiplying the number of hot spots that are available to you.

...

formatting link

***** Moderator's Note *****

ObTelecom: I wonder if they'll take VoIP?

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
Monty Solomon
Loading thread data ...

Thus far I've seen no evidence of Cox doing anythng like this in my area. They may just get beat to the punch by Clear Wireless though I don't like the fact that Clear makes you use THEIR device and not WiFI.

It would be nice though if Cox stepped up.

Reply to
T

I really think anyone offering "last mile" Internet connectivity should be doing something like this. It'd be really easy to do. Just give all your customers a wireless router like that used by

formatting link
. It sets up a private wireless network and a public one. Your cable, DSL, or whatever, would provide the Internet connectivity. If you are away from home, all you have to do is be near another subscriber and use the public wireless on their router. Data could be prioritized to give the most bandwidth to the private side of the network (the one who is actually paying for the connection). This sort of roaming would be very beneficial to users and would help sell the ISP service.

Harold

Reply to
harold

Now why would I want to do this? My broadband service and speed is based on what I personally use, and I found that even in my cul-de-sac there are neighbors who used to use my broadband while I was on vacation :-) Here's a thought

formatting link
get one, and the "don't haves" can have free Wi-fi.

Mus' be a political thing......

Carl

Reply to
Carl Navarro

In areas with overhead plant, CATV operators can provide wifi with strand-mounted access points such as:

formatting link

Neal McLain

Reply to
Neal McLain

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.