Responding to a class-action suit over its deployment of dual use Wi-Fi gateways to residential customers, Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) said its home hotspots don't impede network performance or undermine security.
The conglomerate, however, stopped short of addressing one of the lawsuit's key complaints: That the leased gateways, which push out a separate public Wi-Fi signal, increase power bills for customers.
In an FAQ sent out Tuesday, Comcast once again offered to walk customers through the process of turning off the second SSID. It also addressed the issue of network congestion.
"The broadband connection to your home will be unaffected by the new feature," Comcast insisted. "For your in-home Wi-Fi network, we have provisioned the Xfinity Wi-Fi feature to support robust usage, and therefore anticipate minimal impact to the in-home Wi-Fi network. As with any shared medium, there can be some impact as more devices share the network. For data usage, the activities of visiting users are associated with the visitors' accounts and therefore do not impact the homeowner."
Addressing the issue of security, the MSO noted, "Whenever you sign in, we help protect your privacy and the safety of your Comcast email or username and password by providing 128-bit encryption on the sign-in page. This is the same standard used by thousands of online banking and financial services sites around the world to protect your critical transactions."
The suit was brought against Comcast by two Northern California residents, who claim Comcast is "exploiting them for profit" as it seeks to use residential gateways to underpin its carrier-grade Wi-Fi networks.
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