this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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From what I've read this is built into the required wifi router for Xfinity. I discovered this when I signed up for Xfinity fiber, had the fiber installed and setup and then cancelled it the same day, because of this and not being able to buy and run my own hardware, and needing to install an app on my phone to manage the router, and apparently not being able to choose my DNS. They required that I rent their hardware for an additional $15/mo. Oh well, at least fiber is in the house now, if anyone wants it in the future. I sure won't be paying them to spy on me.
Fuck Comcast, still.
This shit was a pain in the ass and now learning about this makes me feel even more pissed off as a customer
Damn. Put a faraday cage around the router and plug in your own router to a LAN port.
Wrap it in aluminum foil.
Whilst this sounds a lot like a foil hat joke, that's literally the easiest way to wrap something in a conductive material cage (i.e. a faraday cage).
If you don't want it to look ridiculous, put it inside a box whose inside has been lined with aluminum foil.
Mind you, personally I too would just cancel that shit, but the option is there to carry on using it whilst blocking its radio emissions.
FWIW I was able to use my own router when I set up with Xfinity recently
This was fiber, if that makes a difference. I asked the install guy, he called his boss, because no one had asked him that before. He told me "no, it's not allowed". Also, I tried plugging the patch cable directly into my own wifi router and nothing.
The router would need to be explicitly configured to connect to your account on the network, which would require certain information provided by the ISP, which it sounds like they weren't going to provide.
All inferred from the response I got from the tech.
That's because Xfinity offers motion sensing as a feature, which requires this tech in the router. Presumably it's configurable and costs extra to turn on.
It's a "costs extra feature" for the customer. But, they have access to it regardless of whether it's "turned on". It's never turned off for them. And, if that puts me in tin-foil hat territory, so be it.
Comcast is why I have starlink