There is a reason they are doing this. After signing up for Xfinity I noticed that the modem we were leasing was broadcasting a public access point with no way to disable it. I purchased my own modem immediately. Then some time later they rolled out their mobile services, which you guessed it, rely’s on those open access points and Sprint as a fall-back. So now customers are paying monthly to host Xfinity mobile services.

I will admit that it is clever, but this should be transparent and customers should not be subsidizing the cost.

So if they let themselves into your house while you were away and left a note in your dining table, you’d say there’s a reason they’re doing this?

There is not a reason to access and modify your private data. This is not some kind of out of band multiplexed signal, they are reaching into your applications and changing their behavior.

There are other ways to communicate with people you have a billing relationship with already in place.

My response to the parent comment was why they are forcing their modems on people, not regarding the JS injection, which I was equally horrified to see. There is a reason I keep JS disabled by default.

As far as I am aware, it is possible to disable the public 'xfinitywifi' hotspot on all Comcast modems which provide this feature (I had a stint as a TSR relatively recently). Further, I believe this is a user-configurable setting on all CC modems. I personally have this feature disabled on my Arris 1682G, and this should be their most common model in most regions.

I was told I could not disable their hotspot, nor could I set my own DNS servers. Since I kept having connectivity issues due to Comcast’s DNS being flaky, and not wanting to manually configire every client, I bought my own modem and wireless setup.

You can disable the hotspot and use your own DNS servers if you want. The ability to disable the hotspot is documented in the public FAQ (Google: "XFINITY WiFi Home Hotspots FAQs").

I've used my own DNS servers before. I have no problem making DNS queries to 8.8.8.8, and in fact I switched my PC to use it one time when Comcast DNS was down.

What's the point of giving Google instructions instead of just linking https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/disable-xfinity-wif... ?

As the other person has said, they have a FAQ for disabling the hotspot. I additionally set my modem to bridge mode in order to use a more capable router. It does look like Comcast mandates the use of their DNS whenever possible, and I'm sure that I bothered to configure an alternative because of reliability issues as well.

The DNS issue was the clincher for me, but I followed their instructions for disabling it and it reappeared when the router was rebooted (not reset).

Overall, I’m rather happy with my current setup. I bought the most recent SB modem available at he time, got an Edgerouter and a Unifi AP. Took a few minutes longer to set up than a netgear or whatnot, but was able to use POE to put the AP in a far better location (it’s actually under my sofa instead of the closet where all my wiring goes) and have had a far more reliable and customizable experience.

That's not enough. Defaults are a powerful thing -- the vast majority of customers won't go through the process to disable it.

Times ... change.

It took a moment to realise you didn't terminate and stay resident.

Apologies; I never used DOS enough to retain that acronym.

Apologies, I have ;-)

Tinfoil makes a great Faraday cage

This is where tin foil is a great tool. Comcast sees the wifi activated but no one can connect though the layers of metal.

this is where you should buy your own DOCSIS3.0 modem which is a dumb L2 bridge with no NAT, routing or wifi functionality:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Download-Certified-Spectrum-T...

I would actually be fine with it - I'm pretty sure I am not using full bandwidth supported by my cable and I'd be fine for Comcast to use it for whatever they like, in exchange for free Wifi and stuff. But when they also want to charge me a fee for that, that's where it doesn't work for me. If you want to host your infrastructure, which you sell, in my home - why I should be the one paying for it?

Xfinity/Comcast deal is with Verizon, not Sprint. The deal to allow Xfinity Mobile to use Verizon happened years ago. Doesn't change much or any reasoning, but VeriOn is a lot better in terms of service area [and strength] vs Sprint.

Verizon has poor service in many places, eg Hawaii or when roaming up near the Canadian border. They still haven't figured out how to support international roaming reliably, half my family was w/o service for our few hours in Canada. Service in SoCal seems to be one of their last strongholds, but even then voice calls sound like a robot.

Verizon is far and away the market leader in international roaming and it isn't even remotely close. At least in my experience.

Source: Tried to get away from VZW for a decade now - international roaming always being the ultimate decider.

Curious who you've found to be better.

Verizon has always been that shit-tier company ran by borderline criminals which happens to have the far superior network and hard product.

Took multiple support calls and 2 hours of our time to get their phones to roam in Canada, whereas the rest of us were up and running when we landed. Nevermind, once we got their phones working, outbound calls still didn't work on iPhone or Android, it'd ring outbound and the other person would get the call, but the call would collapse on answering it.

Comcast using Verizon doesn't have that problem in Canada at least the two times so far I've been there with their phones. Worked instantly and the prices are rock solid. Hate still having Att as my main provider when going anywhere outside America.

With the highest priced international sprint service i had terrible connection in Paris several months ago. I would go 30 mins to an hour with no connection frequently.

At home (Boston Ma) sprint is good enough to online game and stream at the same time. I lost my comcast connection for several hours recently, and tethering to my phone resulted in less latency...

Edit: This is on Sprint's unlimited plan (around $50 a month for 1 line, $25 per line for 4 lines)

If RCN is available near you (I'm in Watertown), I highly recommend them. I was used to very frequent Comcast outages but haven't had a single issue with RCN after subscribing for almost two years.

Have you tried t-mobile? They seem to have excellent coverage everywhere I go, which is mainly Europe. /And/ free (but slow) data.

T-Mobile works very well where I live (Uruguay), we have some company-issued US-based cell phones and they have very good connectivity.

Their voice quality on VoLTE is perfect.

> customers should not be subsidizing the cost.

Can you please explain to me how you think this is a thing? Are you really that concerned about the extra watt or so of power usage a virtual SSID uses?

Or are you operating under the misconception that this somehow impacts your bandwidth allocation?

It's by far the most innovative and awesome thing Comcast has ever done. And they get ultra-hate from people who should absolutely know better.

The single and sole complaint you could have here is spectrum utilization.

Except comcast has datacaps for total transfer per month.

I don't use comcast so I do not personally know if they charge for excessive data usage, but I know cox does.

Besides the point of potential cost, why should a user who is paying for the service subsidize comcast. They are not getting a discount for offering the wifi to customers.

Funny enough, I tend to avoid these type of discussions because surprise surprise, I got downvoted and they didn't even answer the core question.

Why should a customer pay to add value to comcast? They aren't getting a discount if they enable the service.

Do you know the public access point data is being attributed to customers' usage totals? Or does that just seem like the sort of thing they'd do?

Well, if it weren't I would connect everything I own to that guest access point and bypass my cap completely. Or perhaps the speed of that connection is very slow. But then it wouldn't be much use to other customers either.

When you connect to an 'xfinitywifi' SSID, you have to authenticate with your comcast credentials. The usage is then tracked as yours, not whose-ever hotspot you hit.

Last I saw, this wasn't actually being counted vs. datacaps for either the roaming user or the host.

This works and you can do it today. You actually can get faster than your current service plan (assuming you aren't at the top-tier already) if you have a linux router you can set up for dual-wan.

Last I played with it, I could get an additional 35-40mbps or so out of a typical 100/25 comcast connection in my area.

The data used by other customers on Xfinity wifi does not count against your data cap

> Except comcast has datacaps for total transfer per month.

For you. Not the public wifi network that is served before it hits your LAN. This is what I meant by my original post - there are tons of misconceptions on this.

Your ratelimit is not effected either, at least not any more than your neighbors do who exist on the same headend as you.

> why should a user who is paying for the service subsidize comcast.

How is it subsidizing Comcast again? I just don't see this point - the only possible way you are subsidizing it is with increased spectrum usage (which is a valid point) and perhaps additional power usage - but we're talking pennies per year if it's even measureable.

Tower space? This sort of product wouldn't exist without it.

I think it's confusion on where customers think or feel the demarc is. The ethernet port on the modem is your demarc, not the cable entering your house. If Comcast did something to alter and/or impact traffic after

> They are not getting a discount for offering the wifi to customers.

Of course they are? You get access to everyone else running the same AP in their homes, so when I travel I don't have to worry much about broadband access. It's especially great at airbnbs with broken internet - I can simply use the neighbors xfinity AP. It's actually an incredibly consumer-friendly thing we used to speculate on in the late 90's and early 00's when wifi was just starting to become a thing.

I do agree it should be something you can toggle in a user interface, but turning it off should remove your access from the xfinity wifi pool. I also completely understand why it's not optional - due to the ignorance shown in the thread. Most consumers think that me torrenting on the Xfinititywifi AP is somehow impacting their data cap and/or throughput. It's not, and even highly technical people continue to perpetuate this myth.

I'm about as anti comcast as they come - but this is one of the better more consumer friendly things any ISP has done, much less Comcast.

> Except comcast has datacaps for total transfer per month.

The extra access point doesn't count towards your data cap.

What are the odds the extra Javascript / altered data packets are going towards a person's data cap?

jlivingood seems to be a Comcast employee, and he/she is saying that the leased one is no longer compatible.

FCC complaints are usually more effective, never dealt with one in the current shitty administration, but legally the FCC requires resolution within 7 business days, or at least a plan of action if resolution isn't possible for completion. I used to receive the emails and all the people on an FCC chain put pressure on the lower levels.

I'll file a complaint with the FCC as well then. I'll probably file one with the City of Chicago too. Might as well put as much pressure as I can on them, because this is ridiculous.

I don't care if the issue is bureaucracy, incompetence, or greed, but I know filing lots of complaints with regulatory bodies generally solves the first and the third issue well, and motivates companies to fix the second issue too.

I'll second the FCC complaint route. A friend has a HD tv with a cable-card.

Getting support after a while wasn't working (to be polite he was getting the runaround), but the FCC complaint got their attention and got the issue resolved. This was with the previous administration, which was was more sympathetic, but still worth a try.

I can confirm that Comcast responds to FCC complaints effectively. I used that route when they were my provider after a series of unhelpful technical support requests.

I'm skepitcal that the current FCC would give a shit about this complaint since it reflects poorly on their supporter (an ISP.)

> I'm calling Comcast, and if this isn't immediately resolved I'm filing a fraud claim with the Illinois attorney general. This is the third or fourth time I've had a supported modem that Comcast has claimed isn't supported, and I'm sick of jumping through hoops getting this resolved.

You should talk less and file more.

Philadelphia, one of the most corrupt cities in the United States, had a very interesting character - at the time he was the Inspector General. Looked like Robbie Lewis from Inspector Morse. Quiet. Really nice guy. Bar none, he was the most feared person the city. His motto was "It is never an overkill to use a nuclear weapon to kill a mosquito - it is an insurance policy. Mosquito dies"

Instead of going to the AG, I would recommend contacting the FCC. This prompts quick action and even just telling a Comcast rep that you're going to contact the FCC can be helpful.

Comcast makes it very difficult to get support if you don't lease one of their modems. Literally every time I call they insist that the problem is my modem, and of course it never is. All of my issues have been either outages or congestion-related, but Comcast reps can't fix the former and will never admit to the latter. So instead they blame your modem and ask for 10 bucks a month to lease a modem from them.

> edit: Proof https://imgur.com/lzKBkMs

If you look at the far right device you see a non-EOL SB6121. The one on the left that is EOL is the leased one, and the retail one is still allowed. I'm not sure if you have a leased device or retail device.

I had a purchased SB6121 that they wouldn’t let me move with 2 months ago. It’s not just leased ones. They will support it until you need to make any changes, then will make you use a “supported” one.

Is there any technical difference between the two?

Technically, one makes money for Comcast.

I own it, but Comcast often thinks it's one of theirs. It annoys me to no end. Obviously their inventory management stinks.

I had Comcast for a few years at my old house and bought my own modem. It was a no brainer, $80 for a modem vs $10/month to rent theirs. Well after about 2 years I got a bill saying that I owed them for rental of the modem. I called and fought with them. Even when I cancelled my service they kept asking for their modem back. Luckily, my new house is in an area that has Metronet fiber internet. I've switched and use them for internet and TV and love it. I've had zero issues so far (though it has only been 7 months)

Switch isps?