Comcast: Don't Use Your Residential Account To Sell WiFi To Apartment Buildings
OceanNet is a company that provides building-wide WiFi to residential buildings in Ocean City, Maryland. One problem — the WiFi was really just some guy's Comcast account.
Apparently, the drama and resulting lawsuit got started when a Comcast employee needed access to a phone closet where OceanNet had installed its service. They found "that the WiFi network was drawing its Internet access from a residential-class cable modem illicitly spliced into the building's feed," according to Ars Technica. The modem was registered to a guy named Frank.
Comcast thought that was strange. They thought it was even stranger when they found out that Frank had Comcast residential accounts at 35 different addresses. Whoops.
Comcast could have disconnected the guy's accounts for the terms of use violation and let it go, but they've decided to sue him instead, alleging fraud.
OceanNet told the Maryland Daily Record that they plan to fight the lawsuit, claiming that Comcast signals are commonly used to power WiFi networks at cafes and other places of business that sometimes charge a fee.
"This is a practice that happens throughout any city," Clark said. "Unfortunately, we're one of the bigger guys in town - so, here we are."
Comcast claims OceanNet illegally tapped into its broadband signals [MD Daily Record]
Man uses 35 cable modems to provide WiFi, sued by Comcast [Ars Technica]
(Photo:mperton)
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Comments:
hahah...That is a great idea. Nice job Frank on screwing over Comcast.
If the users don't complain about the speed (or lack thereof with that many people) and they aren't tripping the mysterious Comcast bandwidth limit, what's the problem? Just Comcast being greedy, like they always are, which is why I switched from them a long time ago.
The defense they claim is bunk though...so a cafe uses comcast to provide wifi to paying customers. The argument at issue is not that comcast is the provideer, the argument is that this guy is using a RESIDENTIAL account for COMMERCIAL purposes.
If I had residential comcast internet service and sold it to 3 of my roommates, no one would know any better...but this guy had a BUSINESS selling residential service.
Frank oughtta win - once I purchase some bandwidth, it's my bandwidth to do what I please with it. If I wish to resell it, then I should be able to, just like a loaf of bread or any intellectual property.
Frank would have been much smarter to have a business connection. Using residential class services to run a business (especially when you're re-selling the service as your own) is a huge no-no in Comcast's user policies and agreement.
I understand the "screw " mentality at this site, but in this case Comcast has every right to go after Frank.
Love the secret wifi cat. Can we go cat pictures full time?
@captainfrizo: Gah, the site didn't like my use of symbos. That bottom part should have read "screw whatever-company-here".
What happened to morals and decent behavior. If you don't like Comcast fine, but don't root for those who steal from them. Theft is theft. If someone steals your wallet, it is theft. If someone steals a service from Comcast, it is theft. The difference is, when a business experiences theft, it passes on the cost to others, while you and I cannot pass the cost of our lost wallet to anyone else. When losses get to great, they cease to exist. Having lived where there was no service from anyone, trust me, poor service is better than no service.
@bnelson333: LOL, what? No other ISP would allow this, do you realize that? Including the one you switched to.
Is Frank paying for those accounts and not violating the TOS? (The second one is unlikely) If so, then let him do it. Free market blah blah blah...
Speakeasy used to have a program that let people do something like this, but they would of course charge for it.
This would be perfectly fine if he had business/commercial accounts and not residential accounts. Problem is, those accounts cost more the same amount of bandwidth/service which would mean less profits for this idiot.
Hmm - it's only Wednesday, not Caturday!
@blash: But what if that loaf of bread was subsidized? Do you see why people might have a problem with that? Residential service is less than commercial because business are charged more, so that a provider can charge the same amount for residential service, no matter where the person lives. If this guy had used commercial service, then there wouldn't have been a problem
@rickinsthelens: i really dont believe it costs comcast anymore to send a signal to one computer on a network or 100 computers on a network.
@rickinsthelens: "Theft is theft... If someone steals a service from Comcast, it is theft."
The service isn't stolen. It's being paid for, then resold at a higher price. That's violation of contract/terms-of-service, but there is no imaginable universe in which buying something and then reselling it counts as theft.
This is the high-tech equivalent of kids who buy jumbo-packs of bottled water (not labeled for individual sale) and then become unlicensed resellers in gridlocked intersections on hot days.
How is it stealing and how is it not within his rights to purchase service from Comcast, and- so long as his multiple customers don't exceed bandwidth requirements being imposed (a big if), so what- what's the diff between that and frank just having lots of computers, lots of friends.
What if he had game parties at his house, charged a $5 cover for beer and wifi?
Now- I think this Frank guy is dumb, because he could probably get the same thing done for not much more money completely on the up and up-- but I'm kinda rooting for him- because when I buy something, its MINE, and no one should be able to tell me what to do with it.
And yeah, I rip the tags off all my mattresses. What are ya gonna do about it?
@Esquire99: I think the better argument is "Comcast violates its TOS agreement all the time, why shouldn't the same apply to me?"
@nakedscience: Oh yea, because Comcast ALWAYS lives up to its TOS agreements. How dare Frank do to Comcast what they do to users?
Makes me sad that I can't get Speakeasy here. They encourage sharing your connection through wi-fi with neighbors, and even have tools setup so that you can charge for the access. 80% of the fees collected are applied to your account balance. Get enough casual users on and you've got your connection paid for.
@JohnDeere: neither does making duplicate copies of digital movie and audio files. So we should all get all our music and movies free...
/sarcasm - goes back to searching for more torrents.
@JGKojak: It's not YOURS -- you are payingn for a SERVICE and are under CONTRACT. And the CONTRACT clearly states the rules and policies. He broke that contract.
@kingofmars: Umm, your argument is faulty. Business accounts are charged more because they are provided greater speed (upload and download) and (usually) better customer service.
Location has nothing to do with it. If you are in an area that your cable company doesn't currently provide service to, they charge the customer (residential or commercial) to pull the coax and install it in the building.
He's obviously in violation, but you have to admire his initiative....
Thank God my ISP is actually OK with reselling their service. Good ISPs FTW!
I once had a landlord that did this with DirecTV. It was his subscription, and then he just charged us $75/month for it. Except he charged the other two units in the flat the same amount...so he was netting $225 on a $50 basic subscription. And the receivers were at least 8 years old at the time, so he had long since recouped the cost of those.
@Darrone: ...So basically, if Comcast breaks their TOS, it's bad bad bad omg bad and they should burn in hell, but hey! Let Frank do it, it's okay!
It doesn't matter WHO does it, you know.
@mmcnary: I don't admire it, considering if he'd had gone with a business account, he'd be fine. I think he's kind of dumb. He knew what he was doing.
@wiley14: Your argument is faulty as well. Just because Comcast claims faster speeds doesn't mean you get them. We dropped our Comcast here at work because it was just as slow as our old DSL and cost more. After several vists form techs and hours on tech support playing "stump the chump" we decided enough was enough and went back to our old service.
@JGKojak: I ran a LAN center, and part of that involved 'reselling' broadband internet. I spoke with Time Warner, and they sold me a commercial package that would allow me to do this. It cost about 5x as much as a residential package, but the bandwidth/service were excellent, and my contract allowed me to use the bandwidth for commercial purposes.
They even offered to throw in free commercial cable (since its probably on the same line already), but we had no TVs.
@FooSchnickens: Their ToS plainly states what Frank did was unacceptable. So regardless of the speed, it doesn't matter.
@JGKojak:
Internet service is priced based on the typical usage patterns of individual residences. That's why they exclude Frank's activities in their residential TOS (he could probably use a more expensive business line for his purposes), and that's why you and Frank are entirely WRONG.
@rickinsthelens: "What happened to morals and decent behavior."
You could ask Comcast the same thing.
I just don't understand how he was making any money doing this. He'd have to charge more than Comcast to make any money, so who were the suckers that paid this guy when they could get the same service for less?
@nakedscience: I didn't want the trouble of doing that at the beginning of the lease. At the messy end of the lease, though, the thought did cross my mind a couple of times.
@acklenheights: raising rates? So by the same logic...catching Frank should lower my bill, right?
I doubt it.
So that's how Comcast Frank gets paid...
Ayarkay: not sure about Ocean City,MD, but in many areas Comcast's $45/mo internet is the only choice for high speed or the competition price their product similarly.
When was the last time you saw a CLEC who was substantially cheaper than an ILEC? I just renegotiated the phone contract for my office. CLEC was MORE expensive than the ILEC! The CLECs were also rather pricey for VoIP as well. The ILEC of course didn't support VoIP. Ended up going with an ITSP and cut our co's phone bills by approx 5x. Call quality ironically is better than it was with the ILEC.
@bnelson333: His service contract doesn't allow him to resell his bandwidth, but he is. If he had paid for a commercial service agreement, he could get a package that allows reselling.
Lots of cafes set up wifi networks for their customers, but they have commercial accounts with their ISPs which allows for sharing/reselling/bundling of bandwidth.
demonstrably false: http://www.speakeasy.net/netshare/learnmore/
speakeasy not only encourages it, they give you the tools to do it!
"This is a practice that happens throughout any city," Clark said. "Unfortunately, we're one of the bigger guys in town - so, here we are."
I love this argument. "People violate Comcast's policies all the time, so they shouldn't be able to punish the ones who they catch."