Work Around for WiFi Access When Cable Modem is down

When in home, if RF feed to cable modem/Wifi router is impaired, your WiFi remains working,  It is your LAN (same with wired connections). You are only losing internet access (and any other associates services.  Note this solution works well if impairment is confined to your home or just a few homes nearby.

1) place your trouble ticket for repair.  (Mine happened when Comcast Contractor Early Saturday morning moved my feed to a neighbor in error, we are in a neighborhood under construction at same time Node feeds are moving around, the DOCSIS 3.1 was being upgraded with new taps).

2) disconnect your modem/router power and coax - This obviously will prevent Comcast repair so do so only to complete step 3. Immediately update your repair ticket with note that cable modem is disconnected from RF feed and Power in order to use the work-around described in step 3.

3) Preface - So all xfinity broadband plans have access to xfinitywifi SSID.  Mostly used in mobile, tablets and away from home laptops to avoid metered wifi.  The xfnitywifi SSID is part of wifi firmware in every Comcast router since roll-outs beginning in 2009.  It is a great feature even if taking frequency resources away from bandwidth in the node.  I live in a dense xfinity neighborhood so on my walks around 200 acres when I lose my range to SSID in my home (both SSIDs are broadcast), I generally lose my auto-connection to both SSIDs in my modems.  Luckily I am automatically handed off to the next modem xfinitywifi broadcasting SSID in the neighborhood. 

Solution -  reboot each device you need until your service is restored, you are essentially using xfinitywifi SSID on neighbors modem/wifi, it is just a slightly less signal strength.  This is a great feature and some commercial Comcast installs are also using this dual SSID broadcast..  Leave all your restored wifis connected (your wired devices obviously will not work but then I was able to unplug my stereo receiver and SmartTVs, reconfigure the networks to xfinityWiFi and use my xfinitywifi rights on my neighbors routers until I am restored).

After all your devices are temporarily restored, remember the note in the repair ticket that you are unplugged so the technician.  As soon as the repair tech is activating your modem, the devices you have will find the stronger family SSIDs and likely seamlessly restore to your stronger family/home SSID signal and start dropping the xfinitywifi all together. (for me I then plug in my wired devices to remove WiFi).