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Some here might have read my thread a few weeks ago regarding my Wi-Fi and Internet woes after I purchased multiple Sonos loudspeakers for our home. The speakers were perfect but the Wi-Fi connections to them was making me crazy as they were not connecting to Wi-Fi reliably and would always search for the signal and not connect. I was in contact multiple times with both Sonos Corp. (the speaker manufacturer) as well as the eero corp. (makes my router extender) and of course Xfinity that provides both our modem / router and internet service. Both Sonos and eero ran diagnostic tests on my system and both came up with the same conclusion. I was putting out two Wi-Fi signals within my home and both had the same name! Apparently the Xfinity tower is both a modem and a router and the eero box is a router & extender. Since I had two Wi-Fi signals being transmitted the speaker system (and other devises as well) were confused as to which signal to lock onto. Xfinity was clueless -not a surprise! Both Sonos & eero went above and beyond in not just diagnosing the issue, but in guiding me on exactly how to fix it - again Xfinity did not have a clue even though the fix involved their equipment!
The fix was to create an account for Gateway, (manufacturer the Xfinity modem / router box) and then enable the bridge mode for the Xfinity equipment. First of all I never had an account with or even heard of Gateway. Anyway, I did create a Gateway account then did a little research on how to enable bridge mode. Bridge mode basically shuts off the Xfinity router and the Xfinity tower then becomes just the modem. Then you put a cat 6 ethernet patch cord from the Xfinity tower into the eero router / extender which becomes your only router and Wi-Fi signal being transmitted. Seems easy when you know all this - I did not! The long and short of all this is that my home has one, strong full 3 bar Wi-Fi signal now and no devises are trying to figure out what Wi-Fi signal to latch onto. My printer has always had inconsistent Wi-Fi connection that I had to constantly mess with and now that has been fixed too. Apparently from what eero and Sonos told me, certain devises use different hi or low frequency's and some are much more sensitive than others.
I am rating both the eero company and Sonos company customer service at 5 stars! They both spend countless hours talking to me, emailing and texting me on what the issues were, what equipment needed to be tweaked and exactly how to do it. They also followed up with emails and texts to make sure I was happy and that the fix worked. Xfinity.... forget about it, never heard back. I have also come to find out that Xfinity could have and should have done this for me online or over the phone with the click of a mouse but had no clues as to what to do or where to even do it - they were completely useless in getting this issue resolved. Pretty sad that two outside company's had to diagnose, figure out the fix and tell me how to execute it instead of the company I got the equipment from in the first place. Xfinity should have set my system up this way in the first place 3 1/2 years ago when they hooked me up. They are suppose to know what this equipment does and how to wire it up correctly so it works with each other rather than against each other. Oh - BTW, Xfinity named both their tower and the eero box with the same name which confused me even more since I could not differentiate or see there were two signals - both had the same name!
Both Sonos and eero answer the phone calls on their CS hotlines within a minute or two. Xfinity can be a half hour to an hour trying to get an agent in India to talk to you and then good luck understanding their extremely poor English. I had no trouble with Sonos and eero although they were from India as well. Both of these company's went above and beyond their responsibilities in guiding me through this fix and although it seems like a simple thing to do, I had no knowledge of all this Wi-Fi stuff prior to my speaker purchase and had no idea how to diagnose or fix it.
Give me anything mechanical and I can fix it. Internet and wi-fi issues are not my thing! Xfinity's report card here......a solid ZERO! Maybe this info might help others with similar issues.
The fix was to create an account for Gateway, (manufacturer the Xfinity modem / router box) and then enable the bridge mode for the Xfinity equipment. First of all I never had an account with or even heard of Gateway. Anyway, I did create a Gateway account then did a little research on how to enable bridge mode. Bridge mode basically shuts off the Xfinity router and the Xfinity tower then becomes just the modem. Then you put a cat 6 ethernet patch cord from the Xfinity tower into the eero router / extender which becomes your only router and Wi-Fi signal being transmitted. Seems easy when you know all this - I did not! The long and short of all this is that my home has one, strong full 3 bar Wi-Fi signal now and no devises are trying to figure out what Wi-Fi signal to latch onto. My printer has always had inconsistent Wi-Fi connection that I had to constantly mess with and now that has been fixed too. Apparently from what eero and Sonos told me, certain devises use different hi or low frequency's and some are much more sensitive than others.
I am rating both the eero company and Sonos company customer service at 5 stars! They both spend countless hours talking to me, emailing and texting me on what the issues were, what equipment needed to be tweaked and exactly how to do it. They also followed up with emails and texts to make sure I was happy and that the fix worked. Xfinity.... forget about it, never heard back. I have also come to find out that Xfinity could have and should have done this for me online or over the phone with the click of a mouse but had no clues as to what to do or where to even do it - they were completely useless in getting this issue resolved. Pretty sad that two outside company's had to diagnose, figure out the fix and tell me how to execute it instead of the company I got the equipment from in the first place. Xfinity should have set my system up this way in the first place 3 1/2 years ago when they hooked me up. They are suppose to know what this equipment does and how to wire it up correctly so it works with each other rather than against each other. Oh - BTW, Xfinity named both their tower and the eero box with the same name which confused me even more since I could not differentiate or see there were two signals - both had the same name!
Both Sonos and eero answer the phone calls on their CS hotlines within a minute or two. Xfinity can be a half hour to an hour trying to get an agent in India to talk to you and then good luck understanding their extremely poor English. I had no trouble with Sonos and eero although they were from India as well. Both of these company's went above and beyond their responsibilities in guiding me through this fix and although it seems like a simple thing to do, I had no knowledge of all this Wi-Fi stuff prior to my speaker purchase and had no idea how to diagnose or fix it.
Give me anything mechanical and I can fix it. Internet and wi-fi issues are not my thing! Xfinity's report card here......a solid ZERO! Maybe this info might help others with similar issues.
