this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
654 points (97.4% liked)
Technology
84923 readers
3550 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yes, but 90% of ISP supplied modems around the world are modem + router + WiFi access point with a unified firmware.
You also can't take the antennas off of those and they are required in order to receive internet.
Yes you can use your own router (I have a Unifi cloud gateway ultra myself and one access point in the middle of the house), but that doesn't mean that disabling the WiFi on the ISP web-software bullshit actually disables the WiFi and doesn't just hide the SSID and make it un-connectable and still use it for this kind of thing and identifying nearby devices.
It also doesn't mean that all the routers themselves like my Unifi aren't using the access points to do the exact same thing (or will in the future). The only way you can actually control that is with openwrt or similar.