I’d like to see how they figured that someone else hooking up to a router would increase the electrical use by 40%.
Other than that, I wonder if these people actually own the routers, or if these are leased from Comcast.
I’m with the other crappy service Verizon, so this doesn’t impact me.
When we had a leased Arris modem/router from Comcast it was putting out the separate Xfinity signal. The 40% increase in power usage might be realistic in some circumstances. I would guess that the unit probably averages 6 watts of load just sitting and 10 watts when it is being used. This means that if it were under additional load for 24 hours and you are paying 10 cents a kilowatt hour that it would cost you approximately a penny extra per day.
The game here as in most “class action lawsuits” is that this penny a day equals $3.65 a year... you multiply that by the approximately 15 million people leasing modems from Comcast in the US for the last two years and you have approximately 110 million dollars. If the lawyers can reach a settlement with Comcast they would hope to keep a substantial portion of this amount for themselves. The rest of us would get a 50 cent check from Comcast if we are willing to fill out 10 pages of forms that prove we are eligible to join the class.
Class action lawsuits have been a scam for decades and are in need of further reform. But I wouldn’t hold my breath since most politicians are lawyers. And all of them would like to be able to cash in on something like this.