Xfinity Wifi

Question

Had my Comcast business class Internet (50/10 w/static) installed back in 4/2015. At the time of installation and for several months after, xfinity wifi was not enabled nor broadcasting. Months later, xfinity wifi appears and there is no end-user option to disable or manage via the modem or customer portal, contrary to what Comcast Support articles/tutorials state.

I have no desire to broadcast or utilize this public wifi. For one, I was mandated to pay for my service installation and modem setup (although I was comfortable doing so myself) I pay monthly for my modem, and I pay my electric bill(which powers the modem 24//7). Why then must I broadcast public xfinity wifi? Why was my installation not free and why doesn't Comcast contribute to my electric bill? I have called support on 3 occasions to have them disable the wifi and was guaranteed each time that it would not become enabled again. It reactivated each time without fail.

The Cisco modem/router has 2 radios, 2.4 and 5GHz. Xfinity wifi utilizes the 2.4Ghz band and Utilizes channels within that band that would otherwise be reserved for customer wifi bandwidth. This is thievery. Comcast has zero right charging customers installation fees and modem rentals fees all the while using customer equipment to broadcast their public ssid. Customers are supporting the 'xfinity wifi' initiative on their dime. Not fair! In my building alone, there are 6 xfinity wifi ssid's. Most customers have no idea where these ssid's even broadcast from, let alone that they actually pay Comcast to broadcast these ssid's for them.

VBSSP-RICH · Answer

Hello DB12 and welcome,

You can control your DPC39XXB Comcast Gateway (CG) Public (HotSpot) and/or Private wifi using the following Business Class Portal facility http://businesshelp.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/comcast-business-wifi-hotspot-directory-information/ .

If your Service Order Agreement (SOA) was a 3 year term then you should be able to receive a credit for your installation charge but not for any of your telephone activation / provisioning charges. However, if your SOA was 2 year or 1 year, then there are standard installation charges associated for business installation, along with additional telephone activation / provisioning charge. Comcast is not responsible for any of your electric power utility charges for any of your Internet, Telephone, or Cable TV equipment power sources.

Hope this helps you out.

train_wreck · Answer

So on the Xfinity wifi, I myself have also seen it re-enable itself numerous times on my DPC3939B. As an alternative you can call and request that you be swapped to a Netgear CG3000DCR modem; this unit is a wired-only gateway with no wireless capabilities (and thus no potential for Xfinitywifi.) Be aware that you may get charged a $99 service fee to do this, as it requires a tech visit. (Full disclosure: I had this gateway back in 2013 and experienced pretty severe packet loss under load. This problem has ostensibly been fixed since then.)

As a last resort, you could always get some copper mesh & wrap it aound the Cisco. Wouldn't stop it from eating into your electric bill, but would at least prevent the signals from emanating. Something like a "makeshift" Faraday cage 🙂

DB12 · Answer

Rich - I do not subscribe to any voice services and I do have a 2yr agreement. Also, the link you provided does not provide accurate information. I have visited those pages and even concurred with support that those options do not exist within my customer portal. I was told that they would be enabled by tier 2 support months back but nothing has changed. I understand that Comcast isn't responsible for my electric bill under normal circumstances. However, when an ISP removes customer control from a device in which they're renting monthly and it is instead shared for the benefit of Comcast and xfinity wifi, that tends to change the rationale behind what would be "normal circumstances". Aside from billing issues and potential credits for diminished and nonexistent access/control to a device in which one pays monthly for, there are alsosecurity risks involved. Any outside access to my network that isn't directly controlled by me and my firewall is a threat to my privacy and my clients privacy. I store confidential client information and POS transactions within my network. Should I really have to worry about potential outside threats that are given explicit an direct access to my network? No!

Train-wreck - I have expressed that I would prefer to use my own modem for Internet access but was told that I couldn't because of my static ip. I'm strongly considering tossing my static in lieu of my own modem. In that case, Comcast will be out $35/mo in revenue because of their refusal to disable my xfinity wifi. I have FiOS for home internet and have used my personal router for the past 8 years with zero issues. Verizon doesn't micromanage their customers network they way Comcast does. They should be ashamed of their deceptive and controlling business practices. End of rant 🙂

tmittelstaedt · Answer

Rich and DB12,

Rich, it's been said before on this forum that the xfinity account link you posted does not apply to Comcast business customers. The business customer portal does not have a mechanism to shut off wifi. That toggle only appears if a) your an Xfinity customer and b) you have a Cisco modem. I don't have a Cisco modem so I cann't say for certain, I'm only reporting what I've seen.

DB12, Unless you are running servers like a mailserver which requires a PTR record, and requires stability, you do not need true static IP addresses. The DHCP IP addresses that Comcast hands out typically persist for months which makes a dynamic DNS solution quite usable for most instances. You can run dd-wrt on a modern router and support noip.com and many other dynamic DNS providers directly from your router.

The issue with static IPs and dynamic IPs is that Comcast makes it difficult and expensive for people to have real static IP addresses. As a business customer I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand naturally I don't like paying extra. On the other hand this policy keeps the rank amateurs who would cause more trouble for me and others like me on the network off of the network. Meaning, I'm not going to have my customers access to my servers impacted by some 15-year-old trying to use bittorrent to download the entire "game of throwups" blueray set from some pirate site on his parent's Internet connection.

I understand your annoyance but there's cornepone solutions available like wrapping the box in aluminum foil or mesh and grounding it that will permanently shut off the wifi advertisement. To be honest most businesses have different criteria than cost when it comes to Internet connectivity. Cost can be passed along to the customers, but things like reliability will make or break a business. Also, it's been stated in the Comcast documentation that the public access wifi is on separate channels than your subscriber service and even if it was flooded, it will have no impact on your service, that also implies to me that it is on an independent network, so public access users would not be able to use it to access your private network. In any case with a static IP you should be putting that public IP on the outside of a router behind the Comcast cisco and using that as your "firewall"

DB12

Xfinity Wifi

VBSSP-RICH

train_wreck

DB12

tmittelstaedt