Anyone get a WiFi WAN working where the WAN connection is to the XFINITY WiFi Home Hotspot system? These appear as an open SSID of “xfinitywifi” but once you connect, they expect a web browser to be initially used so you can authenticate with your Comcast credentials. After that, you never have to authenticate again on that device even if you encounter the XFINITY WiFi Home Hotspot “xfinitywifi” SSID on the other side of the USA, so I suspect they grab the devices MAC Address. The Pepwave (I am using a Surf SOHO MK3) does not have a built in browser to do this initial authentication…
Hi. I know a negative response is not what you are looking for, but I might mention I spent hours trying to do exactly the same thing – but with a Balance 20 and a Pepwave Device Connector. I gave up the attempt after I found a better solution (using a client’s neighbor’s system as a wi-fi backup.)
If I was going to try it again, I think I would (1) take the SOHO off-line & turn it off after making note of the MAC address on the wi-fi radio; (2) temporarily clone the MAC address of the SOHO onto the wi-fi adapter of a device on which I could use a browser (a computer); (3) log-on to Comcast with the computer with the cloned MAC; (4) disconnect the computer and change the MAC on the computer back to whatever it was originally; (5) let the SOHO connect to the hot spot. I think that oughtta work.
I’d like to hear of your results if you try this approach. 
Rick
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Thanks for the suggestion. I thought of that as I observed that the Pepwave had no problem attaching to the open “xfinitywifi” & getting an IP address, just wasn’t allowed to communicate from that point due to it not getting authenticated on the network. I also wasn’t able to get it to switch/use any kind of enterprise PSK that had Comcast credentials either.
So spoofing the Pepwave’s MAC Address & authenticating using that to get into the Comcast database is on my list of things to try.
I’m just doing this as another failover, as it potentially would have more bandwidth then the present cellular failover.
I generally found that setting everything to use the WAN DNS. When you do that you should be able to use the browser on your pc to authenticate to Comcast. I had the same issue as you when I had all my DNS settings set to OpenDNS. Once I set it to use the connections DNS I was able to authenticate.
Can you please be a little more specific as to what you did & where?
Hi mjburns. I’ll let jjjjmartinez answer since he made the [excellent] suggestion [and – darn – made a point I forgot!!], but I might interject a “side note”: If you go to your account page on comcast.com/xfinity.com you can see what devices are registered by MAC address to use their hotspot system. - Rick
Hi Rick-DC,
Yea, it’s too bad Comcast won’t let you just manually add a device via that “XFINITY WiFi Hotspot Connected Devices” panel.
I tried interpreting what jjjjmartinez said as manually setting the DNS for all WANS to 75.75.75.75 & 75.75.76.76 (Comcast’s DNS Servers) before unplugging the other WANS, and also making sure the “Enable”, “DNS Caching” & “Include Google Public DNS Servers” boxes were unchecked under Network → LAN → Network Settings → DNS Proxy Settings. When I then opened a browser on a PC on the LAN, it simply timed out rather than going to the Comcast login screen despite the only DNS’s it should have access to being Comcasts. There is no manual DNS setting that I could find for configuring the DNS setting for the xfinity SSID. (I am using a Surf SOHO MK3.) I did not reboot the router during any of this.
Ahhh. OK. For your “initial log-on” with your PC (not router) – are you using Comcast’s default DNS? That’ll be where the default DNS is needed – not later (when using the SOHO).
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That was it! Thank you very much.
I thought I had manually set the Ethernet adapter on the PC to manually use 75.75.75.75 & 75.75.76.76, but when I checked after reading your email, the adapter was still getting it’s DNS settings from the router. (I must have set it back to that while mucking around.) So yes, at this point, the router can connect & route traffic via WiFi to a Comcast hot spot. Very nice to have an additional (& legal) connection option.
wondering if there is a way to automate so when PC is turned on the Xfinity wiFi connects and can be used as part of a fusion tunnel…