Xfinity X2 Upstream speeds

On August 5th I upgraded to Xfinity/Comcast Gig X2 service because my Gig+ contract had expired and being retired, my funds are limited. Gig X2 is supposed to provide 2Gbps down and 300Mbps up.

Unfortunately, after the new service was provisioned (and the contract was initiated), I discovered that my Motorola MB8611 Modem was capped at 41Mbps upload. The reason for that is that although the MB8611 is a DOCSIS 3.1 modem and capable of up to 2Gbps up, this modem would have to have received recent firmware upgrades which support orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) on the upstream side. Presently OFDM is only supported downstream. That being said, the MB8611 has fallen off of the Xfinity recommended/preferred list since Motorola has ceased to support upgraded firmware for it.

So, I purchased the new Arris Surfboard S33 DOCSIS 3.1 modem which arrived today. I provisioned it and I have 2Gbps downstream and 41Mbps upstream which is the same upstream speed I had on the old modem.

After talking to Xfinity Technical support for two hours and being elevated to a supervisor, I learned that the upstream speed is only 300Mbps if you are using an Xfinity X-Fi Gateway. Translation: They have not updated the upstream provisioning code for customer provided modems yet. There is no timeframe for this according to the supervisor that I spoke with.  They offered to replace my UDM Pro with an X-Fi gateway which is a nonstarter with my seven VLANs, multiple site to site VPN's, 120 switch ports and so on.  I run a YouTube tech channel and my upstream speed is critical and the reason I opted for the new contract for two years.

There is nothing in the product description and nothing that the sales folks said that led me to believe that  the 300Mbps upstream was not an expected feature with the Arris modem which is listed as both a preferred and recommended device.  In fact, the sales person on the phone who updated my contract told me that in the last two weeks that Gig X2 was offering 300Mbps as a new feature and was a huge improvement over the 200Mbps offered initially.

I was told that I would get 40Mbps only because I had a customer provided modem. So, I regard this as misrepresentation of the product/service being sold. The reason the the X-Fi Gateway is pushed is because it segments off a dedicated portion of bandwidth for a "public" Xfinity Wifi service for every customer that has this gateway. Their gateway does not support VLAN's, inbound/outbound custom VPN's, failover WAN connections, site to site VPN, and a plethora of other features I require. They also indicated they would not provide any "discount" on the service. I renewed my Xfinity contract for X2 service because it was the next higher service. Had I stuck with Gig Plus, I would have been paying $141 a month.

As it is, I have to pay $30 each month for "unlimited" data because I exceed the 1200GB per month cap (upload and downloads added). So, by getting this two year contract, my bill is $115 a month which is $10 more that I was paying, but I do have twice the download speed. The catch is they advertised in writing that I would get 300Mbps downstream and not the 40Mbps downstream I have. So, their point is I could go with their X-Fi Gateway and get the 300. What is really happening here is that they recoded the provisioning file on the download side, but not the upload side. They recoded the upload side only for their X-Fi device.

This is a bait and switch which I am inclined to report to the BBB since even the graphic from the website pictured above says my service is 2000/300.  I can't use an X-fi gateway for my use case.  I am livid that I bought the new Arris Surfboard S33 for $198 and I still have only 40Mbps upstream despite Xfinity's own documentation that says they support 300Mbps.  I don't like AT&T, but their non-contract regular price for 1Gbps symmetric service is only $79 with no data cap.  My price for the X2 service is $115 because 1200GB's amonth just doesn't work for my wife and I who watch 4k streaming all day long and my YouTube channel uploads.  We are retired and have mobility issues and $115 a month is just not competitive in the market.  Even less so if Xfinity doesn't deliver what is promised.