BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

Actually, You Do Have Wifi

I'm at La Colombe coffee in Bryn Mawr.  It's a brand new location.  They have coffee on nitro, but in addition to the nitro iced coffee, they also have latte on draft. Or, if you're feeling bold and daring and possibly up for an adventure, you can try the black and tan.  The black and tan consists of the latte cold draft and the iced coffee draft mixed.  Black on the bottom and tan on top.  Let me tell you, it's amazing.

Anyways, I asked if they had wifi.  They answered, "Of course we... Don't."

"Wait, what?"

"Sorry, no wifi."

Something like... they purposely don't want people sitting around being all antisocial on laptops.

I'm sitting around being antisocial on my laptop anyways.  Sticking it to the man.  Yeah.  What.  Take that!

Well... as it turns out, if you are a Comcast subscriber, you can sign in anywhere you see Xfinitywifi.  Crazy right?  It's something I noticed when I setup my wifi at home after getting the new wireless equipment.

I noticed a new SSID called "Xfinitywifi".  Here's the genius of Comcast's master plan.  They have decided that every box of equipment they own will broadcast one single SSID... Xfinitywifi.  And anyone who pays for Comcast at their home... Can sign in anywhere else that they see Xfinitywifi.

http://wifi.xfinity.com

Yep.

So, Mr. La Colombe... You DO have wifi... and you don't even know it.

Win!

This is the first time i've used it, and let me tell you, it's amazing.  It's fast and flawless.  And to me?  It's pretty genius if you ask me.  Whoever is responsible for coming up with the idea to make it so that anyone with a Comcast account could sign into any other Comcast wifi router... They deserve a raise!

I'm so glad I didn't switch to Verizon Fios when I was changing over the Comcast out of my mom's name/estate.  I thought about it, and now I'm so glad I didn't.  I'm curious to know if perhaps all the other ISPs will follow suit.  I imagine it's only a matter of time until there's just one single sign on network and the whole idea of having your own router in your house is gone.  I feel like one day eventually the cell networks and wifi networks and all of the other networks will begin to merge converge.  I guess only time will tell!

For now, I'm happy to sit and sip on a new ice cold coffee drink and enjoy sucking up bandwidth on someone else's wifi even though they told me I couldn't.  And I don't even have to be all sneaky about it and slurp someone else's wireless hot spot secretly.  I feel all kinds of official and legit knowing that I've authenticated using my own Xfinity username and password!

It's like having your name on the list at an exclusive club after the bouncer told you that you couldn't come in.  That's right.  My name is on the list yo!  Now open up that door and step aside, cuz I'm gonna get me some of that wifi!