Comcast Visualizes a Mobile WiFi Network

Thinking out of the box is a great way to stay ahead of your competition and Comcast has applied for a patent to give the company an edge in area coverage. The patent applied for is titled simply ‘Mobile WiFi Network’ and is exactly what it sounds like. The plan would use transceivers on just about anything mobile to relay data to cell towers.

The patent application discloses a method for further expanding its Wi-Fi coverage by placing Wi-Fi transceivers in rental cars and taxis and discusses how Comcast may be able to motivate drivers to move Wi-Fi equipped vehicles to areas where it needs coverage.

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is this like the "signal booster" att tried to sell to customer with the "benefit" of better coverage at home, riding on the backbone of the customers internet service, while charging regular usage charges?

Why have a wimax to WiFi repeater when you can just go wimax. I'm sure they have their reasons but whatever

I alreay own one of these, it's called a 3G/4G Personal WIFI Hotspot.

http://www.cradlepoint.com/products/mobile-broadband-routers/phs300-personal-wifi-hotspot

Ehren8879 said:

Why have a wimax to WiFi repeater when you can just go wimax. I'm sure they have their reasons but whatever

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The answer is easy, just ask yourself "how can Comcast charge more money for less service?"

If its a Comcast-controlled repeater, it would allow Comcast to charge the "owner" of the repeater for the wi-max service, and also charge "guests" for wifi access (which cuts into the wimax owner's available bandwidth and cap)

Comcast is selling the cake, and then reselling all the slices.

ibewok said:

is this like the "signal booster" att tried to sell to customer with the "benefit" of better coverage at home, riding on the backbone of the customers internet service, while charging regular usage charges?

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No it's similar to how your AT&T device will use their wifi service when you are in places like McDonalds and Starbucks instead of the mobile network for internet access.

They have rolled this out in Philadelphia and just quietly did a roll out in various areas of Downtown Atlanta. It's free as long as you have a Comcast account and the piggybacking on their home wifi devices is similar to their phone service in that it's a separate channel from your normal internet service. It actually seems to be a decent plan that everyone would be saying is the next big thing if it came from Google instead of the FUD that's growing about it.