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Geolocation wildly different all of a sudden
I've had xfinity for over 10 years. In that time, I've never had a problem with my IP geolocation being so wildly different than my actual location, usually about 2 miles. Now, a week ago, my IP address has all of a sudden shown me in a different state. It has caused massive problems logging into banks, email, and security apps when connected to my wifi. When I use my cell, which is Verizon, it shows my geo location just fine. After 9 hours of talking to zombies and robots in tech support literally spouting FAQs and what not, all I'm told is it's my hardware problem since I have my own modem. Funny thing about that, other than no settings have been changed since I've owned it, and I never had the problem before, is if I connect to the neighborhood xfinitywifi hotspot it shows the same problem, a completely different state for the geo location, confirmed by 10 different ip location services including Maxmind. Now, correct me if I'm wrong - if it were my equipment and only my equipment, why would the hotspot that is broadcast by my neighbors show the same problem? Why would 2 of my neighbors I spoke to who have Xfinity hardware been having the same problem? Oh, but yeah, it's my hardware that is the problem according the the bots in tech support. Digging very deep into this, Xfinity is one of the only companies that DOESN'T update location data when they rotate IP blocks, and you can end up with an IP address from way far away with no recourse but to try and fix it yourself by reporting location errors to the location data reporting sites. It's madness. When I asked the bot to run the xfinitywifi hotspot IP address she confirmed that it was indeed in another state, but then still told me it was my own modem hardware that was the problem. Literally, this trashiest of the trash companies, refusing to admit their own mistakes and fixing the problem. Oh, and they lied 3 times to me that there was no higher tech support and then after an hour 1/2 each time going through the motions of "resetting" my hardware, they finally said ok, lets escalate this to the next level. And finally they just hung up on me after refusing to admit they either a) don't know what they are talking about or b) they were lying and knew exactly what the problem was but refused to admit it.
Lies, cheating, and trash company policies. That is Xfinity. They better watch out, Ting and Starry are spreading like wildfire.
flatlander3
Problem Solver
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1.5K Messages
2 years ago
Geo Locate isn't Xfinity. It's whoever uses geo locate at whatever service you are trying to access.
Maxmind and Google are popular. So is a shadowy little known semi-government connected one called Alkemy. A few open source ones too. You can submit an update request. That takes some time, but google is pretty good at automation and they may pickup your new IP address in a week or so. Search their site. You can fill out a request at a place like this and they'll update a few of them at a time for you: https://whatismyipaddress.com/location-feedback
If you are having an issue with a specific service (streaming provider or whatever), it's fastest to contact them directly to have them update their geo database and unblock/unfence your IP address.
If you have decent equipment, you can also "spoof" a MAC address. Then the next time you reboot your gateway/modem/firewall, you'll get a different IP address from Xfinity, possibly on another IP block. Then it "may" be fixed, or at least closer to your location.
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BruceW
Gold Problem Solver
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26.6K Messages
2 years ago
What @flatlander3 said. Your public Comcast IP probably changed. If your neighbors are having the same problem it's likely their public IPs changed too. Your phone returns a different result when using cell service because it's using a different IP than the one it has when connected to Comcast Wifi. Here's my take on IP geolocation:
Comcast assigns your public IP address, but does not supply geolocation info. Web sites get location information from third parties and it's a somewhat dark art. Essentially websites you provide location information to make extra $$$ by selling your location and IP address info to geolocation providers, who turn around and sell that information to companies who want to know where you are located. It's common for different providers to report different locations.
You may find some helpful information in the post at https://forums.xfinity.com/conversations/your-home-network/security-issue-my-outside-ip-address-changed-and-now-says-im-in-nj-when-i-live-in-mn/6259b49336b3dc41e2a67826?commentId=6259be51ff19c3627da44a36.
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