In this mid-week update,We decided to give you a sneak peek for an upcoming interview that had some killer black friday deals on it. (This is NOT a sponsored segment) Eric’s sitting down with Rigo Topete from Comcast to spill the tea on how Xfinity’s phone system struts its stuff differently than all those other carriers that pretend they’re the best. Forget the usual sales pitch; Rigo dishes out the real deal on the magic of Wi-Fi offloading and how it plays nice with their network to keep your calls crystal clear and your data flowing faster than a caffeinated squirrel. Seriously, if you’ve ever tried to send a text at a packed concert and ended up with nothing but spinning wheels of doom, you’ll appreciate what Rigo’s bringing to the table. Plus, there’s a juicy Black Friday deal on the horizon that could have you switching from your ancient carrier faster than you can say “unlimited data.” So, get ready to upgrade your tech game and ditch the dead weight, because this episode is all about making sure you’re not stuck in the dark ages of phone service!

When Eric sits down with Rigo Topete from Comcast, it's not just your run-of-the-mill tech chat. No, folks, this is the kind of conversation that dives deep into the juicy bits of how Comcast's phone system struts its stuff differently than the rest of the carriers. I mean, who knew phone networks could be so interesting? Rigo opens up about the magic of Wi-Fi offloading, which, in layman's terms, means your phone can hand off data traffic to Wi-Fi when it’s available. This is a game changer, especially in crowded spots like concerts where you usually can't even send a text without it failing miserably. Eric shares his personal horror stories of trying to communicate during events with other carriers, and trust me, if you've ever experienced that, you’ll feel his pain. Rigo's enthusiasm for Comcast’s network shines through as they explore the seamless connectivity that their customers enjoy, which, spoiler alert, is way better than most of the competition. So if you’re looking to upgrade your tech game, especially with the holidays around the corner, this episode is a must-listen. There’s even a juicy Black Friday deal for the iPhone 17 Pro that you won’t want to miss, making it the perfect time to switch if you’re still clinging to that ancient flip phone. Seriously, it's like trying to send a smoke signal in a hurricane, just upgrade already!

Takeaways:

• Eric's experience as an AT&T customer highlights the surprisingly smooth performance of Comcast's service, which is a shocker to many.
• Rigo shared how Comcast's unique Wi-Fi offloading technology reduces congestion and boosts connectivity, especially in crowded places like concerts.
• The Xfinity Mobile Power Boost feature allows customers to reach speeds up to 1 gigabit per second over Wi-Fi, making streaming a breeze during events.
• Eric humorously pointed out the absurdity of using outdated technology, while Rigo emphasized Comcast's commitment to keeping their services cutting-edge.

Links referenced in this episode:

• aroundthehouseonline
• youtube.com/aroundthehousewithericg

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Comcast Xfinity
• AT&T
• Apple

Mentioned in this episode:

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Around the House YouTube

Foreign.

The House with Eric G. Your go to source for everything home improvement.

Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or just looking to make your space shine, Eric.

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Eric G. Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything to do with your home.

I'm Eric.

Thanks for joining me today.

And today we are going to dive into our lifestyles, technology, everything that we're doing around that makes our life a little bit easier.

I got Rigo from Comcast Xfinity.

Brother.

Welcome to around the House.

Oh, Eric, thank you so much for having me.

Delighted to be here.

We're coming up again on the holidays, and the timing just feels too perfect.

So thank you for having me, man.

I tell you what, you guys, in full disclosure for everybody out there, you guys have lent me a phone to use to play around with, and quite frankly, I'm impressed.

I've been a full disclosure.

I've been an AT&T customer my entire life.

I think since before it was singular and AT and T and stuff.

And yours works a little bit better.

Works a little bit better.

And I'm that's being kind to my AT&T people over there.

But I tell you what, there's a lot of things, there's a lot of advantages that I found going when I got them right next to each other.

It don't lie.

Well, that's music to my ears and to all the folks here that work hard at Xfinity, because that's exactly what we love to hear from our customers.

Eric, so glad to hear it.

And no doubt there's a lot of great options out there, but we do believe in our product and that it's a differentiated product and that it's the best one out there.

Well, I think what's cool is you guys do such a great job of combining your massive network out there as well as with the phone carrier coverage, because there's only so many towers out there across the U.S. you guys are on a brand's towers, but really how it seamlessly meshes with the basic online stuff that you see in the stores and the retail locations and even the houses in the neighborhood.

You can have a lot better coverage just from that seamlessly working within each other.

That's exactly right, Eric.

And if you don't mind, I'd love to share a little bit of what's happening behind the scenes here to make that work.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

It's a little bit of what we call WI FI offloading.

And it's this process of shifting mobile data traffic that's on the cellular networks onto WI FI connections.

And what happens when we do this?

It helps reduce congestion with the cellular networks, which gives customers such as yourself faster and more reliable connectivity, especially in areas where we have the strong WI FI coverage.

Man, I tell you what, I was at a concert and of course concerts are horrible for trying to do anything on a wi on a connection over the top of a. I don't care what network you're on, it's overloaded.

It's overloaded dozens of times a year.

You're putting way too many people on a cell tower.

It's just the kind of the Achilles heel of a system.

But when there's a.

You guys have a wifi spot there, it can snag changes the game all of a sudden.

Oh wow.

I could actually live stream part of this concert if I wanted to.

Where there's not a chance that's going to work together on anybody's cell network.

In most cases.

Oh, you're spot on.

And hits close to home, or my old home I should say.

I lived in Pioneer Square, right near Lumen Field.

And so lots of great concerts.

Right.

And that's exactly what would happen to a lot of folks.

And you can see them walking around trying to get.

And it's gridlock.

And so this is where our Xfinity Mobile Power Boost comes in.

That's a unique feature that takes wifi offloading to the next level.

And when you're on Power Boost, you're able to get 1 gigabit per second over WI Fi.

So this means customers can enjoy the ultra fast performance for streaming, gaming or video calls.

Or just as you described it, when you're out there, you can actually stream it while everyone else could be struggling.

Yeah, And I caught myself because even though I am an Xfinity customer, when I pay my bill, it's not like this is some paid segment here.

But the thing is with me, my ATT Apple phone does not work well because of the way AT and T has it set up to do that offloading.

Right.

It's always not working right.

It's never jamming on the right stuff.

You guys have got that engineered.

So it works well because those other guys don't.

And I'll say that just as a customer, it's frustrating.

There's times I have to go in and Turn my WI fi off.

And I'm trying to force it to work.

Not with you guys.

That phone just kept smooth, just smoothly working through that.

And it was impressive.

Yeah, Seamless connectivity.

That's what we're after when it comes to powerboost.

So whether you're at home or you're on the go, we want customers to stay connected through Xfinity's extensive WI fi network.

And that's exactly it.

You shouldn't feel any kind of pain when it comes to this.

It should be just like you're walking around.

It should be no issue at all against Seamless is what we're after.

And we're very happy to hear that.

That's exactly what it's been for you.

I know other customers and I tell you what.

And I used to live in Seattle, now I live down in Portland.

But I tell you what.

Yeah.

Coming out of a Hawks game, trying to text pictures or a video to a buddy is not going to happen.

Yeah.

No, absolutely not.

Right.

You could, I can't tell you how many times just even walking around, not attending the game.

But they're in Pioneer Square and anyt you have just congestion of or density of folks hanging, walking around, hanging around, you're going to feel that.

And this is where the advantage comes in.

Again, a power boost.

And one of the things, one of the data points I want to throw out there, we've done a lot of research and here's what the Data tells us.

94% of the devices connect via WI Fi.

So this is why it's so critical.

It's too important to make sure one, we have a great gateway and whole home coverage, but we also want to make sure we have that on the go.

This is why we're going to continue to make investments in this space.

I want to just throw out a fun fact.

I know you're down in Portland.

I don't have this, that name or that number.

But we have 100,000 free hotspots in Washington alone and that number is growing daily.

Let's shoot back 10 years and we'll talk about your guys's network because I use it heavily.

Fascinating.

And AI is going to be again as we as apps change.

If you notice over the last few weeks, as you're using Google and Edge, all of a sudden they're really pushing the do you want to search using our AI platform and all of that stuff takes bandwidth and if you don't have it, you don't have it.

And it's going to cost in the User experience, personally if you don't.

So it's more and more important.

It's kind of like when I was a kid and we had aol, right.

You did all you could within the bandwidth and otherwise it was just a really slow day.

Yeah, I remember those days.

The dial up AOL connection.

Oh my God.

How patient were we?

Oh my.

And then remember when it would just.

It would kick you off like you were.

It felt like it was going smooth and then all of a sudden you had to reset it and.

Oh man.

Yeah, somebody was calling on the phone and was trying to get all.

My mom and I was a kid and we had the one phone line in the house and he'd been tied up.

The phone.

Well, yeah, I'm with you.

I, I was in that kind of home too.

We had one line and it was, there was always some, a little bit of shouting back and forth.

You're tying up the line.

I got a call coming in from grandma, from someone else and oh yeah.

Here we are now.

Now, AI and a lot of people are scared of it out there and I always just say when you're scared of something, play around with a little bit so you understand it, you know it.

You can really get some great information.

Of course it's not 100% truth.

It's doing the best at finding stuff, but every month it's getting smarter and smarter and it can save you.

I was using it trying to find out history of my dad because he worked for the government and wasn't always clear exactly what his job was.

And so I got into a conversation on my cell phone with Grok going back and forth and sure enough I found out more stuff about my dad that I'd never know.

My family didn't even know, but that could dig deep and that would have saved.

That would have taken me days of research and in 20 minutes I had way more information than I had before.

So there's some great uses for it out there.

Of course it's scary.

It's just like when the Internet was coming on.

It's scary, but it's going to change and speed things up a bit for us too.

I completely agree with you and I hear the same out there.

The echoes around the uncertainty and the fear around it.

But I think that's what comes with any new technology.

I was having this conversation with my mother recently and she for the first time started dabbling a little bit with it and she's like, hey.

But I just, you know, is it safe?

And will.

My Will someone Take this information.

And I think we're in this learning stage, but I really talked to her about embracing the technology, learning through it, and we haven't even scratched the surface, right?

No expert in this space.

But I really love to tell people about embracing technology because there's ultimately going to be.

There's an opportunity that comes with it to grow from it.

And this, what it reminds me of too is we just, with all of this, all this new technology coming, the demand on bandwidth, the on making sure we have the right amount of capacity, that's what we've been working on too, Eric, is we know there's companies out there that are making big investments to continue to add, build up their servers.

But all this is capacity.

Right.

And we have to continue to make investments there.

We're in a great position today.

We feel we're the leader in that space.

But we also know what's ahead.

We have to continue to make those investments.

Man, it's so funny.

And I'll say this, and this is not just because you're here.

Like my mom's house, she's late 80s and in her house there is not.

You guys aren't in her regional area.

So another cable company comes in there.

I walk into her house and I just had the capo, they put a new box in and I look at it, I'm like, I had this box with you guys like 15 years ago, 20 years ago.

And I'm like, oh, it's that old remote, that old silver remote.

Okay, that's new.

It's shocking at how many other companies out there that are other competitors of yours that are just using that dirt slow old technology and they're still throwing a band aid on it and kicking it out the door where you guys every couple years have the latest, newest, greatest stuff.

That's fast.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that.

It breaks my heart when I see that box you just described with the old silver remote.

At one time it was great, right?

When it was back 10 years, it was, it was the, it was the newest and the latest and the greatest.

But we've come such a long way when it comes to equipment especially tied to entertainment or wi fi.

And I see that on the, on the Internet side as well, by the way.

I've been my travels.

I have family throughout the country and some of the areas where we don't service, I have family out in Texas and there's a good part of Texas we don't service.

Here in the Dallas metro, they have some equipment that's just so dated.

They're not even on Wi Fi 6.

Right.

So they're, they're on old docs, legacy equipment.

And it just breaks my heart because the technology is, we're so further ahead.

But some companies out there, I won't call it, call out any specifically.

Yeah, I'm not sitting here to bash people.

But it's just, it's a fair comparison.

Like in Cannon beats, same thing.

Not close.

It is dirt slow.

Yeah, exactly.

And so we can't do that to our customers.

Our customers expect the latest and greatest.

We have to make those investments.

We know that it does.

It's quite an investment.

But it's the right thing to do because that's what customers are looking for.

They want to make sure they have what's the newest and we have to keep up with that.

Yeah.

When your data speeds haven't changed in a decade, you might be slightly behind the curve.

And I'm just gonna say that to the other people out there, but you might be slightly, it's like somebody going, hey, thanks for signing up with us.

Here's your brand new iPhone 4.

Enjoy it.

Yeah, that's right.

And one of the things we started to do, we start to send these emails out to our customers for any of our existing customers out there and any of your subscribers, they probably have received this where we send you a report card essentially on your network on how it's.

We send you updates on when we upgrade your speeds at no additional cost through the investments.

That's what we, that's what you should expect.

You should.

If you haven't, if you haven't, if you're on the.

To your point, if you haven't had an upgrade or a speed in 10 years, we should be asking why, why are we not making enhancements or investments we want and we feel we still have an opportunity to even do more of that, which we will.

But it's so important to continue to make those investments there as well.

Yeah.

And guys out there, if you are Comcast affinity customers, and I'll tell you this, and sorry to give away a bunch of your boxes, but if you've got equipment that's four or five years old in there, head down to your local Xfinity store and get it upgraded because you're missing out on the latest and greatest.

So make sure you've got upgraded equipment because I tell you what, it's a game changing difference.

When you get into that stuff where your quad view and some of this other stuff that you can watch for your favorite football Games on Sunday or whatever you're doing.

You're spot on, Eric.

We've started some trials of proactively reaching out to our customers and encouraging.

Exactly what you just said is to bring in their equipment into our local.

To their local Xfinity store.

We have great teammates there ready to take care of you, walk you through the whole process and ensure that you walk out of there and set up a box seamlessly.

So when you get home, it's ready to go.

But we want you all to bring in your old equipment to get the latest and greatest.

I tell you what, not having to run coax cable and having those wifi TV boxes, I haven't had to use my cutter sit in a long time because I don't have to worry about sitting there making custom cables and doing my own install, which I can do, but it's, like, nice to be able to just plug it and go.

That'll fit right there.

I have to run cable under the crawl space and out.

Oh, I remember those days.

I. I've moved around.

I've moved around quite a bit in the company.

I won't bore you through my journey, but I spent a couple of years in technical operations and not easy things, so I'm right with you, Eric.

So excited about the enhancements there.

I still remember putting on the ends.

Doesn't surprise me that you figured out a way to do that very effectively.

I just want a little bit of your background, but, yeah, we've come a long way.

Yeah, it's nice.

And again, we were starting out talking about phones, but this is all that background base stuff that makes that so reliable that it just really helps.

And, boy, it's sure nice not having to look around in a restaurant and go, what's the WI fi in here?

What's going on?

Trying to figure out the passcodes.

What works.

Yeah.

If you're on Xfinity Mobile, you'll never have to worry about that.

Forget about that.

It's not even going to be on your mind ever again.

That is awesome.

Rigo, is there anything we didn't talk about today, but what we've been talking about here with technology, phones, and it's that time of the year, so maybe this would be a great switch over for family.

Throw that new phone in the stocking stuffer and get everybody upgraded.

Especially if you got somebody in the house that's maybe not as technology savvy and they need the upgrade and they've been fighting it, you can use this as your excuse to get them then that New phone.

That's exactly right.

Eric.

I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on our Black Friday deal and especially for the audience here.

I've been with the organization, with the company for 21 years, so I've seen a lot here in my time.

And we have this upcoming Black Friday, the best deal we've ever had.

Eric, I went back to the archives and you have my word, this is the best deal ever.

What's on the deal is the iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible trade in for premium unlimited customers.

You can save over $1,000 in the first year when you switch from a major carrier.

We know those big three out there that ask for top dollar and when you combine the switch from them with this Black Friday deal, the savings can exceed over $2,000.

So this deal right now is active as of now.

We come in a little earlier than the actual Black Friday and it's going to run second because we know we have some procrastinators out there or they're busy, they're with family and that's okay, enjoy that time.

But we'll run it through the second and that's going to be on phones, tablets and even the smartwatch.

So if you don't have a smartwatch, Eric, now is a good time to do it.

Man, I love it.

Mine's a little old.

So about halfway through the day now it's doing that it's paid for.

So halfway through the day it's going.

You could charge me, I'm the same boat.

Oh yeah, it's.

You get.

It's a creature of habit.

It's charged all night.

But again, smartwatch is another one of those health things.

It's really smart and I wanted to get a smartwatch because if I fell and for the safety, some of these things in the safety from heart monitoring to exercise to how much you're moving to fall safety, if you fall and don't react, it can actually call your emergency contact.

Again, safety stuff's key for me.

I love that you call that out because think about what's also changing in, in, in the space, right?

Oura rings are out there, watches and you name it, you know, that's so important to us and that's what technology offers.

And by the way, that all ties to what connectivity, right?

And so it goes back again.

Health data, all of that.

You wanted to be, you wanted to be protected.

We feel we're again in a great position now and we're making investments to be in the same great position in the future for all of our customers.

Man, that is awesome.

That is awesome.

And yeah, I mean, that smart space is just getting started.

And you might as well get prepared for Black Friday.

It might be time for me to switch over now.

You got me thinking that's a pretty good deal because my phone's almost paid for.

I'm like, okay, might be the time to do it.

Please bring.

Consider it because we have some great deals with what we call the tips where you get we you get an extra payout during this period because of the deal on top of what you would have received under normal window or of time throughout the year.

If there was any time and you're thinking about it, pop on in into one of our Xfinity stores.

And that's why we keep opening those up, because our customers love them.

And these are mobile experts that are going to make it easy for you to upgrade your phone or switch from the other carriers.

And I tell you what, guys, no reason to jump on.

I want 800 number call you guys up when you can just walk in and deal with somebody face to face and they handle it.

To me, I'm old school like that.

I'd much rather just walk in and have a smiley face, deal with it with me and work through it and leave with whatever I need versus the other way around.

So for me, that's the best way.

Those stores are awesome.

Yeah.

And I would.

That's my style, too, Eric.

We know.

Yeah.

Folks can certainly go on to xfinity.com or call 1-800-XFINITY but I'm a little what I would describe as old school myself.

And I like to walk in, lay down on the table and let the experts do the work.

That's what they're trained for.

While you can sit back and relax, watch a game or whatever we have on the TV that you want to watch.

We'll take care of you.

You.

That's awesome.

Rigo.

Thanks for coming on today, brother.

I really appreciate it.

And guys.

And there's the hot breaking news there with that sale.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

Thank you so much, Eric, again, for having me.

You're doing such a great job here and just appreciate you giving us some time.

No problem, brother.

I appreciate it.

I'm Eric G. And you've been listening to around the House.

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We will see you next time.