There was a thunderstorm in the afternoon and the power went out while I was holding a Zoom meeting at home on my remote work day.
A child was playing near the modem and accidentally bumped the cable, creating an hours-long mystery as to why the internet wasn’t working.
Vandals cut fiber-optic lines in the neighborhood, disrupting Comcast service hours before the Eagles played in the Super Bowl (Philadelphia nightmare became reality for about 17,000 Kensington-area residents in February) became).
All are situations that can cause panic, throw you off your day’s plans, and give you a bad headache.
But Comcast officials say they have a solution.
It’s called Storm-Ready WiFi.
But it’s also “squirrel-proof,” said Matt Ecker, vice president of products. “Please replace the words storm” We respond to almost any event that can disrupt or literally undermine your Internet service.
Storm-Ready WiFi is made possible by a new product that customers can purchase for $7 per month for 36 months, or a one-time payment of $250.
This white tabletop device is smaller than the company’s Xfinity Gateway modem/router combo and comes with unlimited cellular data backup and a 4-hour rechargeable battery. This cost pays for the device itself, and the customer retains the service indefinitely even after the portal is paid off. When not needed as a backup wireless source, this device also works as his WiFi extender, boosting the signal in hard-to-reach areas of your home.
» Read more: How to improve your home WiFi without calling customer service, according to Comcast experts
Storm-Ready WiFi, which launched nationwide in August, is the first of its kind offered by an internet provider and the first such option in the U.S., Comcast officials said.
For years, “we’ve always heard from our customers that they want to have deep connections,” Ecker says. Then the pandemic hit. More and more people now work from home at least several days a week, relying on their home internet connection for both professional and personal purposes.
Mike Janove, Product Experience Storyteller at Comcast, said just last week he received a text informing him that his home network was connected to Storm-Ready WiFi. While he was working at his office in the city, his wife was working from her home when a construction worker next door accidentally disconnected the Wi-Fi. She reported a seamless transition to Storm-Ready WiFi.
Janove demonstrated the transition Tuesday at the Comcast Technology Center’s Product Experience Center. The center offers expansive floor-to-ceiling views of Center City and gathering spaces designed to look like living rooms. Ecker and several other colleagues watched from couches and cushioned chairs as Janove simulated how his Storm-Ready WiFi would perform during a power outage.
Janove removed the cable from the back of the gateway, joking that he was acting as “Hurricane Mike.” Within seconds, the LED light on the bottom of the Storm-Ready device illuminated. In her Xfinity app on her phone, Janove mirrored it to her Apple TV at the front of the stage room and received a notification that said, “Connecting to Storm-Ready WiFi.”
Unlike when customers connect to mobile hotspots with their smartphones, customers using Storm-Ready devices do not experience disconnections or downtime when service switches from regular WiFi to cellular data backup . This means you don’t have to log back into a Zoom or Teams meeting or re-enter your device passcode, Ecker said. If a user is on a video call, there may be a few seconds of noticeable buffering at most.
“It’s also very useful when you’re not at home,” Ecker said, noting that it can keep wireless video doorbells, smart thermostats, some automatic pet feeders and other devices running.
Storm-Ready WiFi took more than three years to become a reality, and future updates are likely to be more gradual, including longer battery life and stronger cellular signals, Ecker said.
