Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Unless you're part of the tiny percent of people who run their own router, your ISP can just monitor what goes through your ISP-provided router.


With the home router+wifi market estimated to be USD 2070.43 million in 2022, I wouldn't say it's a tiny percentage of people, just people you know.


Most people don't buy their own router, the ISPs bulk buy thousands of routers at a time. The ISPs make up most of the market.

Many of these routers are managed by the ISP using protocols such as TR-069, several ISPs have already been found to not only manage the devices but also monitor certain data including what devices are present.


This is pure anecdata, but almost everyone I know, include the people who aren't particularly computer-savvy, owns their own router and cable modem so that they don't have to pay a rental fee to their ISP.


I don't think charging rent for consumer broadband equipment is common in many countries, at least not in Europe.


1. Where does this stat come from?

2. You can't say anything about the percentage with just the absolute market value. At the very least you need something else to compare it too.

Please, be serious.


A reader who's actually interested in getting the source, might try Googling for "2070.43", or even "2070.43 million wifi". I must admit, I wasn't serious enough about my comment to spend $3,250 on the whole report, and had to go off of the public preview. Since you seem to be more serious, maybe you could pay the $4,400 for a multi-user licensed copy of the report and share the PDF with me? I'd love to read more of the analysis.

So, I mean, I dunno, 2 billion dollars seems serious to me, but maybe we just have different barometers for what counts as "serious amounts of money". Especially considering these devices that are like $300.

Finally, might I remind you of the guidelines? in particular:

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: