We are longtime seasonal Comcast customers who never bothered to move to X1. They are now offering to upgrade our boxes to X1 at no extra cost, however also say we must start using their combination router/modem gateway (for which they say they will also waive the fee). I have invested a significant amount of time and money into my own equipment: an SB6141 modem (bought when it was TOTL), an Asus RT-AC68U router, Actiontec ECB6200 MoCA bridges, and various splitters, amps, and filters to make sure that MoCA works without issue. I do not want to give up control of my network to Comcast. The sales lady we were speaking to though made it sound like the use of their modem/router was necessary for the boxes to work (in particular she made the pretty fake-sounding claim that the remotes 'relied on WiFi, not Bluetooth', to connect to each box). We told her to hold off on the X1 order, and she said anyway we could switch equipment at any time at one of their stores at no extra cost, having notated this 'promotion' on our account.
So, is there any merit to what she's saying? Scouring threads it looks like at one point, the X1 boxes' Internet connectivity came via modems built in to each box, not MoCA. But the sources that say so are a few years old now. Has this changed? The XB1 boxes and The FAQ here at DSLReports on X1 equipment says that the Xi3 connects via MoCA, but that alone shouldn't require the use of an XB3 as long as there is a MoCA network to connect to...right? It only mentions the newest generation Xi5 boxes as requiring the gateway - is that accurate? If so, is that what they were trying to sell us on? Are the Xi5s then the only option for new X1 installs?
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