Slashdot Mirror
The Hidden Cost of Your New Xfinity Router
An anonymous reader writes "The battle over Comcast's public WiFi network that is hosted on your cable modem continues. Comcast responded to Speedify's earlier power measurements by rushing them a new Cisco cable modem. The new modem proved to be more power hungry than the last, and also introduced some tricky IPv6 problems that caused major headaches for the team."
I too have had really bad results with IPv6 (TunnelBroker) when connecting to anything Google. You would think that Google of all companies would have their IPv6 poop in a group.
I advise all my contacts when they get new comcrap or slime warner installs to go to the local big box store and pick up a router, then to demand that they get just a regular modem and not a modem/switch/wifi combo...They will often say that it is not an option...if you say "fine, I decline service, please leave immediately if you cant find a non integrated modem" suddenly one just happens to have slid under the seat in his van.....
The device has stability problems as well, as mentioned in the post. In normal (routed) mode, it worked fairly well, although I noticed odd lag spikes and other issues I didn't experience with the old modem. However, once you place the router into bridge mode (disabling all wifi features so I can use my modem direct), the router would reboot itself every 3-8 minutes.
I eventually, after talking to 20+ Comcast reps, got them to put a different modem back in. Even though my plan is 250d/30u, I'm only getting 30d/5u, because the modem won't provision with my plan. However, it works, so I'd rather have that than a laggy, rebooting faster plan.
I strongly recommend avoiding the DPC3939 until the problems are resolved. It lalso ooks to me like all of the problems are software related, not hardware--usually they can be avoided by changing configuration options, etc.
-=Lothsahn=-
He said he switched to OTA, so he likely dropped a pricy cable TV plan at the same time he dropped them as his ISP, hence the savings. After the special deals as a new customer expire (i.e. 12 months into the 24-month contract), several of Comcast's TV plans exceed $150, so even if he was paying the same for Internet with DSL, he could be saving $150 simply by having dropped cable TV for OTA.
I dropped Comcrap for OTA and DSL and I save $150/mo.
Sure, Comcast sucks... But what kind of Comcast plan were you on that you could have switched to DSL (or whatever) and reduce your bill by $150 and still have "high speed" Intertubes? I mean, what are you paying now? What was your Comcast bill? $250? Really?
I'm not him, and this was years ago, but when I moved from Comcast to Speakeasy DSL, (lucked out and got 3Mbps over my phone lines -- the best Verizon could do was something like 750K) I also made the decision that I also didn't need the ubiquitous cable TV and unlimited long distance calling that was bundled in. The savings really was about $150/mo. But arguably, that's cheating, because fewer services. But not really cheating, because they were services I wasn't using.
Currently have fiber to the house and no cable TV at all, and pay a fraction (a sizable fraction, but a fraction nonetheless) of the bundles Comcast keeps trying to sell me.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I actually think this could be pretty cool if Comcast would offer customers *something* in exchange for them hosting a public hotspot out of their house.
How about a free modem, instead of charging them $3/mo to rent one?
I own my modem outright, so have negative incentive to upgrade. But if they were to offer me a free basic IP phone line, or a free upgrade to the next speed tier, or free access to this service I'm hosting, or *anything*, I'd certainly consider it.
But otherwise, yeah, it seems like they're forcing everyone to pay for their network electricity as a requirement of getting their own internet, with no added benefit in return.
It's not a router comparison. You don't need an Xfinity public-facing WiFi router, so this is energy usage in addition to what you would otherwise need for your own purposes.
Uh, they already have all the power over your connection. What are you talking about?
Ptphpht.. I switched to Geico for DSL and save $300 for half the time...
I pay $55/mo for 200+ Mbps, but the availability is pretty limited.
http://webpass.net/
That's a valid opinion, but it's a line of thinking that can get people in over their head. The article mentioned $30 a year. I dumped Comcast's $7 / mo. modem for my own. $7 a month is still kind of a big wup, but that's $84 year. Both together are $114 a year. Still not a bank-breaker for me but I'd rather spend my money stupidly somewhere else then hand it to Comcast and get no benefits in return. My work Aruba router is on a timer. Mostly to keep yet another WiFi network out of my house, but a little cost savings here and there adds up.
They charge you eight bucks a month for the privilege of using their modem. You can buy your own from Amazon for less than you'll pay Comcast for a year's rental - and that's for a DOCSIS 3 modem that handles IPv6 just fine, even with Comcast.
Here's the one I bought - it's $68. It doesn't include wifi, so you'll have to bring your own wifi base - but those can be had cheaply as well. Plus you don't have to replace both functions just because one or the other craps out...
#DeleteChrome
If you call Comcast's customer service, they can put their new routers into bridge mode. This turns off its WiFi and other unnecessary features and makes it act like their old routers.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
The blog post did not compare the power usage with the Xfinity hotspot enabled and disabled. So all we can say is that the new Comcast modem is crap and wastes power by the bucket, just like the old one apparently. So while the title and many comments here seem to imply the extra cost is all due to the Xfinity Hotspot functionality, that view is so far not supported in any way.
FYI, I'm a Comcast engineer. All CPE management interfaces (the interface between the CMTS and the CM) are moving to IPv6 and should be transitioned by the end of the summer. The only remaining devices with the CMM interface still running on IPv4 are a handful of business class devices which should be converted by september. Beyond that, any modem which runs DHCP on LAN interfaces is running in either IPv4 or dual stack mode, though the ultimate plan is to move everything to IPv6 eventually.
Yes, I can confirm this. To use the "public wifi", you must first be a Comcast customer. When you connect to an AP, you are required to login with your comcast credentials to get connected to the net.