Comcast Rolls Out Cloud-Managed Wi-Fi Platform With Monitoring, Control Features
Comcast unveiled the xFi experience Monday, a platform controllable by mobile app, website, TV or the X1 voice remote that’s designed to simplify home Wi-Fi networks as they become more advanced and handle more devices. With Comcast’s investment in Plume, the platform will get a boost later this year from Plume’s Adaptive WiFi technology, which uses pods around the home to maximize Wi-Fi in a “self-optimizing” mesh network that’s said to adapt to a household in real time to ensure fast speeds, the company said.
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Chris Satchell, chief product officer-Comcast Cable, compared in a blog post the xFi to the rollout of the X1 platform, which “dramatically changed video.”
Wi-Fi hasn’t kept pace as homes have gotten smart in the IoT age, said Satchell, and xFi was designed to give customers the coverage, control and visibility they need to manage their digital lives. As of Monday, the cloud-managed service is available at no additional cost to the 10 million Comcast customers who have the xFi Advanced Gateway and the xFi Wi-Fi Gateway via apps available for Android, iOS, the web and Comcast’s X1 remote with voice control, he said.
The xFi dashboard allows users to recover passwords and create profiles for household members, while controlling who has access to the network, and when, down to the person and device level, said Satchell. Parents can pause Wi-Fi at dinner time, set bedtime limits for kids and see how the internet is being used, he said.
If a connected device isn’t working, xFi can help diagnose the issue, Satchell said, giving the example of a video app on a streaming device that's not playing properly. In a typical network, “you don’t know if it’s the device, the app, your TV, your internet service … or something else,” he said. Through xFi, users can troubleshoot by device, determine the cause of the problem and get back to streaming, he said.
A major update planned for later in the year, with the release of “zero-configuration” xFi Wi-Fi Pods from Plume, will allow Xfinity customers to create “seamless Wi-Fi for any size or shape home” by plugging pods into power outlets around the home, said Satchell. The pods use Plume’s Adaptive WiFi software and algorithms to automatically and continuously configure customers’ mesh Wi-Fi networks to match their use, he said.
The goal of xFi is to simplify monitoring, management and control of home networks, said the ISP. In 2017, 86 percent of in-home broadband use will travel over Wi-Fi, and by 2020 Americans will have an average of 50 Wi-Fi connected devices in their homes, it said.