Spectrum’s Advanced Home WiFi Provides Customers With Important Security Features

Advanced Home WiFi delivers security, reliability and the fastest speeds that reach every corner of the home. Designed to increase the customer’s ability to direct their home network, Advanced Home WiFi also provides Spectrum with the information necessary to provide enhanced support.

Advanced Home WiFi is available to nearly all Spectrum Internet® customers, with additional security features to be incorporated into the platform in 2022.

We talked with Carl Leuschner, Charter’s Senior Vice President of Internet and Voice Products, to learn how Advanced Home WiFi better protects our customers and provides an exceptional WiFi experience.

Q: Security features have always been a key component of Advanced Home WiFi. What do these new features do to protect our customers from online threats?

Leuschner: Advanced Home WiFi has many built in features that protect our customers by increasing the security of their home networks and monitoring online threats. Network protections include mandatory password-protected login, advanced traffic encryption via WPA2, and customer notification when a new device wants to attach to their home network. 

We recently launched a series of additional security components as part of a feature we call Spectrum Security Shield. Security Shield is an automatically-enabled feature that works to defend both our customers and their devices from online threats by detecting and blocking malicious websites, phishing scams, data theft and internet-originated attacks against devices in the home. Through the My Spectrum app or Spectrum’s online portal, customers also have the ability to disable Security Shield or view threats that have been detected. This product is currently being trialed in one market, with plans to  make it available throughout our service area in early 2022.

Q: What parental control features are part of Advanced Home WiFi?

Leuschner: The goal of Advanced Home WiFi is to put the customer in control. One of the most crucial components of this is the ability to manage which devices are connected to the network and when. Whether it’s a parent looking to minimize a child’s screen time or simply take control of bed time, Advanced Home WiFi allows parents to manage devices through features like grouping, scheduling and manual pausing. 

Q: How is Advanced Home WiFi a better experience for customers?

Leuschner: Advanced Home WiFi includes both a software platform and hardware to ensure customers have the best WiFi experience across their entire property. First, Advanced Home WiFi is a managed WiFi solution that uses software and advanced algorithms to ensure a given customer device connects to the best frequency band (2.4GHz or 5GHz) and WiFi channel to deliver the optimal experience. Second, Advanced Home WiFi utilizes the latest WiFi hardware. We recently launched the WiFi 6 router and greatly improved throughput and coverage especially in dense WiFi environments like apartments. Finally, in the event customers have a very large or unique home, we offer Spectrum WiFi pods. When Advanced Home WiFi is combined with Spectrum’s fastest and reliable Internet service, it’s a better experience than customers can receive from other network providers or retail WiFi solutions.  

Q: How do Spectrum WiFi Pods extend the range of a customer's home network?

Leuschner: The Spectrum WiFi Pods have been a big hit with our customers. Many people have dealt with the frustration of a WiFi signal that either weakens as it passes through walls or doesn’t quite reach every corner of the home or property. By installing these easy-to-use pods, which simply plug into an electrical outlet and pair with the Advanced Home WiFi router, customers are extending their existing Spectrum-provided WiFi network. Initially, the pods were available as a solution deployed by our technicians after diagnosing coverage issues in a customer’s home. Now customers are able to order Spectrum WiFi Pods directly from the My Spectrum app and self-install them in strategic locations throughout their home to improve their coverage. 

Q: Are there advantages for customers with Spectrum Internet® and Spectrum Mobile™?

Leuschner: We want our customers to have a seamless and ubiquitous connectivity experience throughout the day, whether they are at home or out and about. In order to do this, we automatically and securely connect our customers’ devices to Spectrum WiFi whenever possible, using Advanced Home WiFi when they are home and our more than 500,000 out-of-home access points when they aren’t, only using cellular data when those options aren’t available. 

Spectrum Mobile devices connected to the “Spectrum Mobile” SSID enjoy a boost to the maximum available speed. Since approximately 80 percent of Spectrum Mobile traffic is over WiFi, our customers benefit by enjoying faster data speeds available via WiFi while also minimizing the amount of cellular data they are consuming. Additionally, we are constantly looking to improve this converged experience and are exploring creative ways to better leverage our network to benefit mobile customers in the future.

More information on Spectrum Internet can be found here.