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XFi Pods Make Internet Worse, Not Better
When we set up wi-fi in our hosue after switching to Comcast, we had some areas of our small house that had weak signal. I went to the Xfinity webiste and found they suggested adding Pods. What a mistake!!
For about a month, they worked fine. Signal strength was good everywhere and access speeds were good. Then...disaster! Pods began to randomaly lose connections, causing devices using them to also lose connection. And when they were connected, download speeds dropped to around 15mbps despite our plan speed of 1,000mbps. If I unplugged a pod that was acting up, connections became reliable, but speeds remained atrocious.
Worked with Comcast support over many days and many hours to try to fix. All the rumors you've heard about how bad support is at Comcast are true. It is nearly impossible to get to a living being and when you do, they literally can do nothing. After escalating to a supervisor, he decided the issue was our XFi gateway so he sent a new one. That solved the problem for about a week.
Then the Pods began acting up again. I again worked through the Hades of support to try to exchange the Pods. From that, I got a message saying I could take them to my local Xfinity storre where they would gladly exchange them. WRONG!!! Store personnel can only open a support ticket and promise someone will get back to you within 24 hours.
Did that happen? NO!!! No contact from Comcast until I went back throgh the online support chat to get a numebr to call. I called that number to check on the status of the support ticket. What do you know, support personnel can't actually check on support tickets. While on hold with the support line, I got a call from the Pods team telling me they were sending me new Pods and would charge my account. I didn't want to be charged, I wanted to exchange these pieces of garbage under the one year warranty.
The new Pods arrived. Problem solved? No. Download speeds dropped into single digits. I've now removed all pods and want to return all of them. But I can't because Comczast support doesn't respond.
I've tried to contact the Executive VP of Customer Experience for Xfinity. It seemed I might be getting somewhere when his office responded that I should get a call from the regional executive team within 72 hours. That was six days ago. I've emailed the Exec VPs team again. No response.
DO NOT BUT XFI PODS. DO NOT LOOK TO COMCAST FOR TECHNICAL SUPPORT.
If you have issues with wi-fi in your home, buy your own wi-fi router and/or range extenders instead of using the garbage sold by Xfinity.
You have been warned.
marti
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1 Message
4 years ago
Not impressed at all with these things.....
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atl_vm
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6 Messages
3 years ago
The xFi Pods have been updated. These are the ones with 2 built-in Ethernet ports. They are much bigger, I bought 2 of them. The original xFi pods which come as a set of 3 or 6 may have had these issues, but these issues have been largely resolved.
I have not had any issues in fact the Gen 2 Pod have a 5Ghz back channel to communicate with Gateway \ other pods. They work REALLY well.. I have done a speed test from my phone, to gateway, direct to digital tower (just cellular service) and via the pod.. the pods are getting almost 500 Mbps connected directly to gateway... I also tested this when pods are connected to another pod and it's about 10% slower.. but still respectable and I consider good. You can see the connection pods have when you login to xFi gateway network settings and click on pod -> connection it will identify if it's directly connected to gateway or pod by name.
They are probably identical but because they are capped at 50 MB/s ( 500 Mbps) I am not able to get full potential because I have Extreme blast plan (600 Mbps just upgraded for free to 800 Mbps). So I can get well over 500 Mbps..
In my house I have a dead zone about 20 feet from the gateway, it's at an angle and I have a lot of ceiling lattice and vaulted ceiling along with lights. Before I bought the pods in the exact area I was getting barely over 1 bar, but direct line of sight anywhere else in the house it was fine, full 5 bars even in the middle of my front yard.
So once I installed the pods I put one in the dead zone halfway (or as close as I could get with electrical outlet) to the gateway.. I can't see the bars the pod is getting can only comment on speed which is now 400~500 Mbps because the pod is directly connected to gateway. I have reset my pods, turned off one then the other to test them independent they both exhibit identical behavior. Good connection, no drops, latency, ping, jitter all what I expect from the same gateway.
Incidentally I have the XB7 Gen 2 gateway (the White one) from xFinity with built in AC 6. My gaming computer is AC6 Wifi I get amazingly the SAME ping and latency on WiFi as I do directly connected to Ethernet cable.. so I know the XB7 is an outstanding router as well.
I have 2 high end routers sitting in my closet collecting dust from Netgear \ Asus that I did exhaustive search on gaming sites and was told MANY times these are the models and routers to get. 2 different brands using after market router OS (tomato, DD-WRT) nothing but trouble. One gave good range and speed but would not work with N. So some of my smart home devices would not work. The other was average speed N would work but I was constantly fighting to keep it the signal active.. spent 2 weeks trying different settings because I could not get Comcast to give me the XB7 either because I was not 'eligible' or it was not in stock.. 3 months I waited until FINALLY my XB7 arrived.
Stock OS on both after market routers were ok.. but I had to reset or reboot them which is equally as annoying. They may as well not work at all which is why they are no longer in service.
I can say without any shadow of doubt XB7 is a GREAT router, no reset no reboot and everything works no slowness or noticeable QoS degrade.
Range isn't good.. barely works outside my house but when it's within RANGE everything is gold. So if you have a large yard you need the xFi pods because they also work great to extend the range is much better.
Therefore I can say I would highly recommend them. They are worth every 100.00 price tag I assure you. Have nothing but good comments to say about xFi Pod and XB7 gateway.
One more note. I *LOATHE* Comcast.. Comcast is the WORST company on the planet. Trust me NO ONE on this earth HATES Comcast more than me.. I have to give credit where credit is due.. Comcast has turned around their customer service, products and services in the last 5 years I can promise you.
I have done install work for Comcast, worked with customers and Comcast is the worst company ever.. that is until of late. Believe me I expect my XB7, the pods and service to fail any minute.. I expect any day now my services will give me less than what I pay for.. 4 + years later I can say ZERO drops, ZERO problems, ZERO loss of service.. other than construction.. which is NOT Comcast fault.
I am telling you, Comcast has done a 180 degree turn around with their stuff and even as reserved as I am to give them ANY credit at all.. I have to say I am thoroughly satisfied with xFinity. I pay just under 200 bucks.. and I GLADLY send it on time with NO regret..
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