Rogers Xfinity Storm Ready Wifi Pod - destorying wifi preformance and slowing entire network as wifi extender.

[Smols]

Hello, I've been using the Storm Ready WiFi Pod for a week and have noticed several issues:

• Devices are connecting to the weaker, slower Storm WiFi Pod, resulting in significant speed drops from 300-500 Mbps down to 1.5-70 Mbps, all on the 1.8gbps rogers wired internet connection.
• Devices are not roaming properly and often get stuck with poor signals to the pod.
• Power cycling doesn’t resolve the problem, and nothing I’ve tried seems to fix it.
• Wired devices connected to the gateway are routing through the gateway and getting super slow dns responses as their using the storm ready wifi pod, which is an extremely abnormal networking pathway.

At this point, I believe there’s a major compatibility issue between the XB8 and the Storm Ready WiFi Extender. The system feels unfinished and poorly optimized. I’m considering returning it, as it’s causing more problems than it solves, and there are virtually no configuration options to address these issues.

Has anyone else run into this yet besides me? I noticed on the xfinity usa forums people are having similar situations with the same device.

**Labels Updated**

[57]

1. How far is the device from the Gateway?  Try moving it to about 5-10' from the Gateway as an experiment.

2. I assume the lights on the device indicate normal operation and not "power outage" operation?

3. Put the device close to a window, although that should only matter when power is out.

4. Can you temporarily connect it via Ethernet cable to the Gateway, just as a test?

5. What happens when you pull the plug on the Gateway - does the device work properly on cellular and have the correct light indicator?

Setup guide below:

https://www.rogers.com/support/internet/easy-setup-guide-storm-ready-wifi

[Smols]

1) The setup spans 15 feet with walls in between, using an ethernet backhaul instead of relying on Wi-Fi.
2) The device is properly configured, showing no issues in the app or with its indicator lights.
3) Yes, cellular data is available, but the problem isn’t related to it. The Wi-Fi extender is unreliable and disrupts the network.
4) The system has always used an ethernet backhaul.
5) When it fails, it falls back to very slow cellular data, which is sufficient for basic web browsing and aligns with the advertised specifications.

I noticed a significant routing issue when the device started pulling control of wired devices into the Storm instead of the XB8. After extensive troubleshooting, I’ve concluded it’s simply not a good device. This isn’t an isolated problem—users in the U.S. have reported similar issues with the Xfinity Storm on forums years ago, and it seems those problems were never resolved before its release here. The hardware just isn’t reliable or stable as a Wi-Fi extender with the XB8.

I also suspected trouble when I realized it didn’t support 6E or 6GHz. Based on past experience with routers, merging all bands (2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz) into a single SSID requires similar mesh network hardware for seamless roaming. Since this device forces one SSID, there’s no workaround like splitting the network to avoid roaming issues.

I’m returning it. The device clearly isn’t ready for widespread use and either needs a hardware revision or a complete redesign.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/comments/18linu3/stormready_wifi_causes_issues_on_my_intern...

[57]

---

@Smols wrote:

1) The setup spans 15 feet with walls in between, using an ethernet backhaul instead of relying on Wi-Fi.

---

Thanks for the feedback. Did you try removing the Ethernet and going WiFi only?

Did you try a different Ethernet port on the Gateway?