Comment by das-hinterland | Hacker News Reader

Comment by das-hinterland | Hacker News Reader

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Top posting because there is a lot of mis/false information overwhelming the comments section and this needs to be known.

Facts:

1. OP is a customer of Xfinity Mobile - which is a "Wi-Fi first" internet service. Note they don't call it "cellular" because it isn't.

2. Their terms of service are clearly laid out here: https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/policies/broadband-disclosure...

To quote:

"Comcast's Xfinity Mobile broadband Internet access service ("Xfinity Mobile service" or "Service") utilizes Wi-Fi service - both Xfinity WiFi and Wi-Fi provided by other Internet Service Providers ("ISPs"). When not connected to Wi-Fi, the Service utilizes our carrier partner's mobile broadband Internet access service network and is subject to its network management practices and controls."

Basically they roam onto cellular when their WiFi is out of range.

3. OP keeps claiming that he never agreed to anything blah blah yes you did. When you sign up for anything with Comcast they make you sign an agreement that you agree to their ToS. See South Park episode "Human CentiPad".

4. The service OP signed up for is at a discounted price because of trade offs. The trade offs are that your device will prefer the Xfinity hotspots over cellular. That's literally how it works. That's why you're getting it for cheaper because the service sucks by design. That's on the customer.

5. People attempting to point these facts out have been getting downvoted which is just sad.

The OP isn't complaining that their phone is roaming to a managed Wi-Fi _in preference to cellular_

They're complaining that it's not using their own Wi-Fi and causing real issues for their family members.

Trying to justify this behavior because "well, the ToS maybe said something about this" rightly deserves to get downvoted, as do your other points.

None of what you call out changes the fact that:

1. The OP is experiencing real issues, preventing them from using their own Wi-Fi at home

2. This is because of a configuration setting they cannot change on a device they own.

What SIM they're using, what ToS they've signed, none of that should matter when OPs goal is just "I want to be able to use my own Wi-Fi at home".

We don't know much about the OP's WiFi setup other than he chose to use his own equipment and not to use the carrier's gateway - which would broadcast its own, stronger, passpoint SSID in his apartment and likely these issues would go away.

Consider the following scenario: the OP's router is flaky and disassociates stations during which time the phone gets kicked off then "sees" the carrier's SSID from the neighbor and joins it. Now it's on that network. Suddenly this becomes a self-created problem. The solution is to not use Xfinity mobile or any other "Wi-Fi first" MVNO.

It can both be true that OP is getting what they asked for, and that this is a bad thing for Apple to unilaterally allow. How does Apple know that OP signed up to have their preferences ignored?

This has been going on for years. Not many people know of the deep integration between Apple and the carriers. Your iPhone, when a SIM is inserted, pairs it with a "carrier profile" which is downloaded from Apple's servers. This profile, among other things, has network settings and preferences such as the APN. That's why you need to have the phone connected to the internet to "activate" it; it's part of the provisioning process. These wifi offload networks (along with likely a setting if it can be disabled or not) is likely downloaded as part of that profile.

This is reminiscent of those "ad supported" ISPs of yesteryear that people would subscribe to then complain that it has ads.

It’s so pleasing to hear someone actually know what they are talking about.

(I founded a large MVNO and have been shouting at my screen for a lot of the incorrect assumptions made by others).

Here's something Apple could do: pop up a dialog saying something to the effect of, "this carrier wants to manage your wifi settings. Agree? [yes] [no]". If the user doesn't agree, that's communicated back to the carrier who is free to not render the service. Presto, Apple doesn't have to take the carrier's word that I agreed to a third party managing my networks.

That it's been like this forever doesn't make it right.

ETA: the ad-supported ISP analogy misses the crucial distinction that the ISP knows I signed up for them to MITM my data. Apple knows nothing of the sort.

I like your fervour, but does any of what you said apply when cellular isn't involved and OP wants to use their own WiFi network but can't because of an unnecessary restriction in their phone OS?

> Top posting because there is a lot of mis/false information overwhelming the comments section and this needs to be known.

You posted this as a reply to a top comment. Perhaps re-post as a top-level comment? I think dang can move these, but likely won't see it for a while.

Replying to the top-voted comment, for visibility rather than relevance, is something I haven't noticed much on HN.

I'm not saying it's wrong, but it seems to be unilaterally subverting the voting mechanism, with the rationale that person is confident the message is so important that the voting mechanism is irrelevant or can't be trusted.

A person could be right, in an instance, but imagine if everyone did that every time they were confident. We'd need a way to mitigate the conflicts from all that individual confidence. Maybe with a democratized voting system.

Nothing in the terms of service you linked says they can disable my devices ability to NOT join their network.

And their advertising absolutely does not suggest they are “WiFi first”, they advertise cellular service with hotspot access. AT&T and Verizon do the same thing (advertise all these great free hotspots you get).

No one intentionally signs up to lose control of their WiFi system on devices they own, so stop making excuses for Apple’s behavior.

I just read their ToS and pulled up their sales/landing pages.

"Wi-Fi first" is a term you made up, their claim is that they _offer_ cellular service and wifi hotspots like all the other carriers.

Read your quoted section again, "utilizes" does not mean "force you to use over all other network options against your will".

wow they've done it: they've out-exploited an already monsterably ruthless monopoly!

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