Hopes and Fears for Xfinity WiFi
Have you experienced Xfinity WiFi? Maybe positive, maybe annoying, but if you touch it once you will need to deal with it. At first I saw this WiFi SSID named xfinitywifi as intriguing, I tried to connect not knowing my Comcast account info at the time and for a period there after I dealt with xfinitywifi popping up all the time, and it was persistent enough to really annoy me. Well I removed it from my WiFi list and forgot about it for a while, until my consulting activity uncovered a possible use for it. If you are not up-to-date on what Comcast’s Xfinity Public WiFi is all about I suggest you view this short video.
I am engaged as a CIO consultant for a large retirement community, CCRC. One of our goals is to improve their overall WiFi options throughout their community. This community offers bulk Comcast Cable TV and the residents get to upgrade to Internet service or premium channels if desired. This has worked out well for all involved. Now the CCRC is interested in expanding and improving their common area WiFi coverage both for business and for convenience. There are opportunities where a more pervasive WiFi coverage could facilitate business transactions such as Point-of-Sale or allow more effective monitoring of residents for health or access control reasons. However, institutions such as this are typically dealing with large rebar heavy cement buildings that are terrible for conducting a WiFi signal. We can deploy a solid WiFi infrastructure in the more open common areas, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could depend on connectivity anywhere in the community. Placing our own WiFi APs throughout the residential area does not make sense both financially or technically. But wait, we already have all of those buildings wired with coax carrying Comcast service.
In a multi-tennant installation Comcast basically carves out a few channels to be used for Internet delivery or maybe a public TV channel. This offers some potential for independent services, maybe your own Internet, but in the bigger scheme of things it is probably best to let Comcast do what they are good at. There in lies the opportunity to possibly leverage the xfinitywifi hotspots to enhance your overall local common area WiFi service. You can’t rebrand xfinitywifi to your own public SSID but you could help your community understand how to take advantage of it. So there in lies the good I see for xfinitywifi.
WiFi SSIDs on my iPhone
What about the concerns we might have for xfinitywifi? We are talking about a huge customer footprint that is now using residential WiFi modems to distribute public xfinitywifi hotspots. I live in a high density relatively high tech area near Portland, OR, and I can walk anywhere without losing connectivity to xfinitywifi. Of course I have implemented my own secure certificate on my iPhone with their Xfinity Secure App, but what about the normal Joe who has no desire to understand this Comcast Xfinity Wifi business venture. It is most definitely built upon a serious business plan to be a major player in public wifi access. And if this happens on the backs of their customers modems, is that OK? That is a much larger topic that I am sure Comcast is being extremely careful not to over step their bounds. I believe Xfinity Public WiFi is a good thing, but it will create issues. Everyone should be aware of adding a secure VPN type connection if you plan to use their xfinitywifi. And above all we will need to monitor Comcast to insure that they are not misusing their access to our connection information.