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CES 2022: Comcast Bringing WiFi 6E to Subscribers With New xFi Gateway

nquinn said:
In most cases equipment rental fees are a huge ripoff, but honestly with some of these 6e routers costing $400-$600 it's maybe not quite as bad of a deal. (3.5yrs to breakeven for $600).
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I still prefer to own my equipment. With my own router, I can do with it as I please such as installing a custom firmware and having the ability to fine tune the settings.

The routers that service providers offer tend to be very basic and locked down.

How long do people keep their routers? I've owned my AC router ($250) for 5 years already and don't plan to replace it for at least another year since the manufacturer is still supporting it with firmware updates and the Asuswrt-Merlin project is still on-going. If I bought a 6E router, I'd keep it for just as long.

$14 x 60 months = $840
 
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Relentless Power said:
May I ask why? I’m just naturally curious and I don’t understand why you don’t want any of their Wi-Fi hardware.
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He hasn't responded but I'll chirp in with a reason.

Comcast sells mobile service (smartphones) that partially relies on their customers WiFi routers for their service, really - and you get to pay to power your little section of that if you have one of their routers. Their WiFi routers have one side for your personal WiFi and then another one for their commercial WiFi needs - which your paying to power and most folks are totally unaware.

Alot of folks probably wouldn't care, but it bugs me.
 
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Sasparilla said:
He hasn't responded but I'll chirp in with a reason.

Comcast sells mobile service (smartphones) that partially relies on their customers WiFi routers for their service, really - and you get to pay to power your little section of that if you have one of their routers. Their WiFi routers have one side for your personal WiFi and then another one for their commercial WiFi needs - which your paying to power and most folks are totally unaware.

Alot of folks probably wouldn't care, but it bugs me.
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You can disable this. They should incentivize you to enable it, but at least it's not mandatory.
 
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orbital~debris said:
The extra capacity brought by 6e is going to be moot if everyone gets in on the game… :p
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My understanding was because of the increased bandwidth without increased speed 6E simply reduces congestion. Having a 6E modem won't mean the new frequencies are the ones you will use.

Also, because of the lower distance it travels, there should be less disruption from neighbors. Ideally, you want is thick shared walls and thin private walls.
 
mnsportsgeek said:
I don't think so. You need xFi complete for unlimited data. $25/month would get you the gateway plus unlimited data.
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Depends! If you live in the Washington DC metro area (including parts of Maryland like Rockville, Gaithersburg, Germantown, etc.)? Comcast still enforces no data caps on any of their customers. (Funny how they have different sets of rules for the political big-wigs and those around them, right?)

But yeah - I liked the xFi router when I got to use it in the past. I just don't like that Comcast won't sell these to people, vs the rental requirement.
 
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Sasparilla said:
He hasn't responded but I'll chirp in with a reason.

Comcast sells mobile service (smartphones) that partially relies on their customers WiFi routers for their service, really - and you get to pay to power your little section of that if you have one of their routers. Their WiFi routers have one side for your personal WiFi and then another one for their commercial WiFi needs - which your paying to power and most folks are totally unaware.

Alot of folks probably wouldn't care, but it bugs me.
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It bugs me because they claim they can't provide faster upload speeds but if I am uploading a 24 lbs turkey their mobile customer's utilization works without issue. They are limiting access to bandwidth that could be provided to the person paying for the service.

So yeah, disabled.
 
kingtj1971 said:
But yeah - I liked the xFi router when I got to use it in the past. I just don't like that Comcast won't sell these to people, vs the rental requirement.
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The gray one (xFi Advanced Gateway), at least for me, thermal throttled like crazy. I had three of them that needed to be reset daily. The white one (xFi Gateway 3rd Generation) goes months without needing to be reset.
 
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4jasontv said:
The gray one, at least for me, thermal throttled like crazy. I had three of them that needed to be reset daily. The new white one goes months without needing to be reset.
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Interesting... I believe it was a black one I had, after I first upgraded to 1GB service and had problems with an Arris cable modem that SAID it was compatible at gigabit speeds on their cable network, but would never get speeds over 750MB or so. The xFi actually hit 980MB or so in speed tests, which is what I would expect to see from 1GB service.
 
kingtj1971 said:
Interesting... I believe it was a black one I had, after I first upgraded to 1GB service and had problems with an Arris cable modem that SAID it was compatible at gigabit speeds on their cable network, but would never get speeds over 750MB or so. The xFi actually hit 980MB or so in speed tests, which is what I would expect to see from 1GB service.
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I am honestly not suprised. The white one is 2.5 ethernet and wifi 6. The gray was 1 gig ethernet and wifi 5. I have a 1200 mbps plan with the white xFi and just ran a few speed tests using a 2.5 ethernet port. Here are my three best speedtests for different servers. The 929.12 was to a comcast server 100 miles away, the The 942.71 was a competitor near the comcast server, and the 894.79 was to a broadband competitor's server within my city.

That upload speed kills me. Sometimes its faster to fill a thumb drive and get in my car than to try and send it online.

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Sasparilla said:
He hasn't responded but I'll chirp in with a reason.

Comcast sells mobile service (smartphones) that partially relies on their customers WiFi routers for their service, really - and you get to pay to power your little section of that if you have one of their routers. Their WiFi routers have one side for your personal WiFi and then another one for their commercial WiFi needs - which your paying to power and most folks are totally unaware.

Alot of folks probably wouldn't care, but it bugs me.
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You can turn that feature off on their website or on their app. It's not mandatory.
 
I had the black one for a year because it came with unlimited data at no extra charge. Of course I forgot to mark the end date on the calendar so Comcast automatically charged me monthly for the modem/router and then they cancelled my unlimited data, so I went over. I honestly just don't want to give that company any more money than is absolutely required. There are no broadband competitors in Chicago so they can charge whatever they want.

I sent back their modem, bought the latest Arris modem and got my trusty Airport Extreme out of storage and it's working wonderfully.

I really wish Apple would have released a large HomePod with Airport Extreme built in. Or, at the very least, just continued to make routers, because that thing is one of the most reliable pieces of gear I've ever owned.
 
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4jasontv said:
I am honestly not suprised. The white one is 2.5 ethernet and wifi 6. The gray was 1 gig ethernet and wifi 5. I have a 1200 mbps plan with the white xFi and just ran a few speed tests using a 2.5 ethernet port. Here are my three best speedtests for different servers. The 929.12 was to a comcast server 100 miles away, the The 942.71 was a competitor near the comcast server, and the 894.79 was to a broadband competitor's server within my city.

That upload speed kills me. Sometimes its faster to fill a thumb drive and get in my car than to try and send it online.

View attachment 1938875View attachment 1938876View attachment 1938879
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Yeah... the caps on upload speeds with the cable providers universally irritates me. I get the same with Spectrum/Charter now and friends on Cox cable experience that too. Seems to be a pretty standard thing that cable providers in the U.S. have the networks configured so upload throughput peaks around 40Mbps, no matter what download speed you purchase.

I'm told this is a limitation of the technology used ... but they could still dedicate more channels for upload vs download, I'd think. I imagine they're just unwilling to reduce the maximum download speeds they could offer in exchange for that?
 
i pay 107$ comcast for unlimited 2gb down 120 up internet and phone . year contract I either haggle for the same deal and price or better, I don’t pay for cable since I don’t watch tv neither do I pay for movie services just cough moviebox cough
 
Relentless Power said:
May I ask why? I’m just naturally curious and I don’t understand why you don’t want any of their Wi-Fi hardware.
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Number of reasons

1) I refuse to let them run their free hotspot on my wires. 2) I absolutely don't want them to have access to configure the network, or see inside the firewall, which they can do on their gear, but not on mine. 3) I don't want them updating firmware on their schedule instead of mine (they do that enough already with the modem and local nodes, and I've got the dropped video conferences with customers to show for it). 4) I override their DNS settings to cloudflare so they can't inject ads and/or monitor traffic, and don't want them fiddling with that. 5) I can buy much higher quality network gear and deploy it for vastly better coverage than a single router stuck where the cable line comes in. 6) I tune the network to only use unused channels in area, and configure other settings to get bonjour working so my apple devices actually talk to each other reliably.

From that, if you get the idea that part of it is that I don't trust them, that's definitely true, but let me be fair here - i wouldn't trust any ISP to have access to my internal network (it's not unique to them). Firewalls exist for a reason :cool:
 
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kingtj1971 said:
Yeah... the caps on upload speeds with the cable providers universally irritates me. I get the same with Spectrum/Charter now and friends on Cox cable experience that too. Seems to be a pretty standard thing that cable providers in the U.S. have the networks configured so upload throughput peaks around 40Mbps, no matter what download speed you purchase.

I'm told this is a limitation of the technology used ... but they could still dedicate more channels for upload vs download, I'd think. I imagine they're just unwilling to reduce the maximum download speeds they could offer in exchange for that?
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It is a technology limitation (power on the modems partially, but other things too). DOCSIS 4.0 is symmetric GB over Coax.
 
SenorWhyMe said:
i pay 107$ comcast for unlimited 2gb down 120 up internet and phone . year contract I either haggle for the same deal and price or better, I don’t pay for cable since I don’t watch tv neither do I pay for movie services just cough moviebox cough
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$140 here for unlimited 700 down, 40 up (they call it GB). It'd actually be cheaper if I added TV (even if I never used it), but I don't want to count as a subscriber for a dying service. The cable bundle (and streaming bundle) just need to go away.
 
kingtj1971 said:
Depends! If you live in the Washington DC metro area (including parts of Maryland like Rockville, Gaithersburg, Germantown, etc.)? Comcast still enforces no data caps on any of their customers. (Funny how they have different sets of rules for the political big-wigs and those around them, right?)

But yeah - I liked the xFi router when I got to use it in the past. I just don't like that Comcast won't sell these to people, vs the rental requirement.
Click to expand...

Comcast also has to compete with FIOS in large parts of the DC area. I currently pay Fios $40/mo for 300Mbps service and they haven't upped my rates in 2 years.
 
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sw1tcher said:
I still prefer to own my equipment. With my own router, I can do with it as I please such as installing a custom firmware and having the ability to fine tune the settings.

The routers that service providers offer tend to be very basic and locked down.

How long do people keep their routers? I've owned my AC router ($250) for 5 years already and don't plan to replace it for at least another year since the manufacturer is still supporting it with firmware updates and the Asuswrt-Merlin project is still on-going. If I bought a 6E router, I'd keep it for just as long.

$14 x 60 months = $840
Click to expand...
I upgrade only when I have a critical mass of devices that support the new standard. So that just triggered a wifi6 upgrade since all the apple gear is now there. 6e will make basically no practical difference for my daily use as I don't sling big files around my internal network, and don't live in a congested area, and internet is limited by comcast. I did do an early cycle refresh last fall, so I could dump the orbi because their firmware sucks (and they force it on you with no opt-out). The ASUS mesh is rock solid and much faster than the orbi ever was (at half the price).
 
nquinn said:
Comcast also has to compete with FIOS in large parts of the DC area. I currently pay $40/mo for 300Mbps service and they haven't upped my rates in 2 years.
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Bingo - i live in a monopoly area. Isn't competition lovely?

and..i think that's enough posts from me for a while :)
 
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