“There are a lot of Comcast cable modems leased by residential and business customers. Millions, in fact,” Peter Cohen writes for iMore. “In 2014 Comcast created a public network on many of them called ‘xfinitywifi.’ If you’re a Comcast customers, you can use this public hotspot to sign in — using your own comcast.net e-mail address — to access the Internet. The network has confused and worried some of our readers, however. If you’re one of them, here’s what you need to know.”
“The bandwidth used by the network doesn’t count against your own bill; it’s a free service for Comcast customers,” Cohen writes. “If you rent your modem from Comcast, chances are your modem is broadcasting an ‘xfinitywifi’ network.”
“That in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It means that other Comcast customers can come over to your house and log on to Wi-Fi without accessing your personal network at all. So if the presence of ‘xfinitywifi’ doesn’t bother you in the list of available networks, feel free to ignore it,” Cohen writes. “If you’re having trouble with xfinitywifi…”
Read more in the full article here.
i turned my off but regularly use other customers’ xfinitywifi.
Double standard? Or shady activity? 😛
definitely double-standard, however no shady activity. i get throttled by ATT every single month so i need to latch on to wifi by the end of the month
So why not give back to the community and allow others to use your xfinitywifi?
It costs nothing (negligible pennies in electricity) and doesn’t affect your bandwidth.
Does it not effect your bandwidth? If somebody is streaming video through the xfinitywifi on my setup, can they guarantee that my speeds won’t be slowed?
Supposedly not, but I’ve read that the power consumption of the modem goes up considerably. So Comcast customers get to pay Comcast’s electric bill for their public network.
It DOES affect your bandwidth! That router can only handle so much bandwidth, so if others are on it, you’re going to lose speed. Also, it eats a lot of electricity. Buy your own cable modem and send Comcast theirs back. You’re leasing it anyway, so you save money by buying in the long term.
Guys, stop the paranoia. Your power increase would be negligible. And you are always guaranteed the bandwidth that you are paying for. There is much more bandwidth over the top that you don’t have access to and that is what is available to xfinity-wifi. That said, I find xfinity-wifi EXTREMELY unreliable.
they insure that it doesn’t but i don’t believe them
Ugh! This article doesn’t show you how to disable the extra network on the modem itself so it cannot be used by your freeloading neighbors sucking your bandwidth; it only assumes you’re a tech illiterate that doesn’t already know how to delete it as a saved auto-connecting network on your own computer. What the hell, people seriously need an article for this? The settings are intuitive and self-explanatory.
“want more from this author? Read his advice on how to lock your front door and secure your home: When leaving your house, examine your door handle closely, you may see a small turning mechanism on the inside side. Turn this and the outside locks. Before you close the door, make sure you have your keys, and it might also be a good idea to put them in and make sure they are the right keys for your door.”
Well, you can do like I did and don’t use a wireless modem.
My Comcast DOCSIS 3 Arris is wired to my Airport Extreme.
You can also buy your own modem and ‘cut the rent’, so to speak….
I have my modem in bridge mode, wired to 802.11ac Time Capsule. In bridge mode it should emit no wifi, but I do see xfinitywifi with full signal strength from my home, guess it could be a neighbors and not mine. Guess I could unplug mine and see if it goes away.
Or you could Google the model name/number and see what IP address the URL is and check the setting.
But then, if you’e set it to bridge, you already know this….
You have to ask have Comcast to turn off the wifi on the cable modem.
It is kinda of a neat idea but I would prefer if Comcast get my permission first to have a device in my house that has free wifi.
Yea,
Had Comcast disable the wifi in their stupid cable modem, back-ended mine with an ASUS 11.ac setup for faster speeds with multiple devices. Living in apartment with LOTS of comcast, getting too much interference. Solved that!
bought my own cable modem, without wifi, and use an apple time capsule… no xfinitywifi network broadcasted.