XB8 not Compatible with 2nd Gen Pods

Xfinity Management and Engineering,

I just upgraded to the XB8 adding Wifi 6E functionality and stand alone it is a great router/modem. The problem is that i have 2 second gen pods and they don't support Wifi 6GHz (6E). The end negative result is that when moving with my phone from one end of the house to the other, it won't transition to the POD once connected to the 6E Gateway network running WPA3-Personal. This is because that POD network is not running the same security protocol. I also noticed that Radio 3 6Ghz does not support WPA 3 - Personal Transition. This is a systemic issue impacting all your customers (at least ones using samsung phones). My work around is to shut off the 6GHz radio #3 and set the other 2 frequencies to WPA2. This works great until 2-3 days later where some system command is turning my 6GHz radio back on automatically. Very frustrating!!!!

Xfinity solution options

1. Release and Replace our 2nd gen pods with 3rd gen 6E compatible pods - Prefered solution

2. Allow persistence of turning off the 6GHz radio

3. Enable WPA3 - Personal Transition on the 6Ghz radio (not sure if this will work)

Please escalate / assign an engineer to this and I'll be glad to work with them to test out any of the above solutions that are impacting thousands of your customers (for free) :)

Responses

user_323c89

Contributor

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80 Messages

2 months ago

As a temporary fix, turn on all three bands, set them to WPA3-Personal-Transition, and restart the XB8. While it’s restarting, disable the WiFi 6E capability on your phone. See whether that provides what you need.

in the interim, I firmly believe that there is an issue, which appeared in the past couple of months, in which certain latest model phones refuse to connect to the Pods, and instead try to hold on to the connection with the XB8, no matter what.

WPA3-Personal-Transition allows legacy devices to connect via WPA2, while simultaneously allowing new devices to connect via WPA3-Personal. WiFi 6E (GHz) has WPA3-Personal as the lowest possible security protocol, regardless. So no point in trying to change that.

Let me know what happens with these changes.

(edited)

user_9psmvf

Visitor

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2 Messages

@user_323c89 That would be nice but there must be a bug because the 6Ghz band doesn't allow setting the security to WPA3-Personal-Transition. It is only set to WPA3-Personal and there is no way to change that (all settings are greyed out in the admin portal other than enable/disable).

Hello Xfinity support experts????

2 months ago

user_323c89

Contributor

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80 Messages

@user_9psmvf WPA3-Personal-Transition simply means that on the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz bands, all devices capable of WPA3-Personal will connect that way, and devices only capable of WPA2 will connect via WPA2. WPA3-Personal-Transition cannot exist on the 6GHz band, as there is no such thing as WPA2 on WiFi 6E (6GHz). Hence WPA3-Personal being the only option.

For the Gen2 Pods to work properly (when utilizing a device that has WiFi 6E enabled), you MUST have all 3 bands active and combined, and you MUST use WPA3-Personal-Transition as the security protocol (as set in the Xfinity app, not the Admin portal).

I highly suggest you use the Xfinity app to make the above changes. Most changes made on the Admin portal (10.0.0.1) automatically revert at some point. Also, you need to “forget” all variants of your WiFi network (in case you’ve previously split the bands), from all of your WiFi 6E capable devices. Once that’s done, power cycle the XB8. When the Pods and the XB8 are fully online, then join the WiFi network again with your devices.

I’m also fully in agreement about the necessity of Gen3 Pods that have WiFi 6E. But that doesn’t help you in the near term.

2 months ago

XfinityBenjaminM

Official Employee

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2.2K Messages

user_9psmvf Hello! Thank you for reaching out to us here on our Community Forum. We'll be happy to look into this further to see what we can do to help. Please send a Direct Message with your full name and address. Here are instructions on how to send a DM in case you need them:

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2 months ago

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XB8 not Compatible with 2nd Gen Pods

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