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Comment by brutal_chaos_ | Hacker News Reader

they can give the tv powers to autoconnect to public/open networks and can partner with companies like Comcast to get more access points. It's best not to buy a smart TV

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Everyone says this but is there even a single example of any TV manufacturer including a cellular chip or partnering with an ISP for this kind of access?

Yeah sure eventually the "don't give your TV network access" might stop working but it works today and for the foreseeable future. You're more likely to get a TV that refuses to operate without a network.

Absolutely no router has shipped in the last decade that I’m aware of that is open by default. ISP modems definitely don’t.

Xfinity cable modem / router combos will create public Xfinity networks by default for many years now. Absolutely is something Xfinity could be selling access to for other corporations.

Yes and it even it requires you to log in first.

American cable operators set up a separately managed and isolated SSID and DOCSIS service flow to provide Hotspot2.0 access for their cellular subscribers (among other things). XfinityMobile/SpectrumMobile SSIDs are everywhere now out of the box being hosted off of ISP-issued hardware.

And it requires a log in.

That’s where we have to circle back to the parent comment - a smart TV operator could 100% go buddy-buddy up with Xfinity/Spectrum/Cox/et al. and get Hotspot2.0 certs at the factory level to go hop onto whatever cable operators they want to target.

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