Comcast Opens Free XFINITY WiFi Service to Aid Residents and Emergency Personnel in South Carolina Coastal Communities Ahead of Hurricane Irma

Charleston, SC – Sept. 7, 2017 – To help residents and emergency personnel stay connected if Hurricane Irma makes its anticipated landfall along coastal communities in South Carolina, Comcast is opening nearly 6,000 Xfinity WiFi hotspots throughout impacted areas to anyone who needs them, including non-Xfinity customers, for free.

Residents across greater Charleston and surrounding communities can immediately benefit from Wi-Fi access courtesy of Comcast.

For a map of the Xfinity WiFi hotspots, which are located primarily throughout busy shopping districts and businesses, residents can visit www.Xfinity.com/wifi. Once in range of a hotspot, they should select the “xfinitywifi” network name in the list of available hotspots and then launch a browser.

Xfinity internet customers can sign in with their usernames and passwords, and they will be automatically connected to Xfinity WiFi hotspots in the future.

Non-Xfinity internet subscribers should visit the “Not an Xfinity Internet Customer” section on the sign-in page to get started. Non-customers will be able to renew their complimentary sessions every two hours through September 15, 2017.

“It’s critical that impacted residents across greater Charleston have a means of communication at their disposal before, during and after a storm with the potential impact of Hurricane Irma,” said Doug Guthrie, Regional Senior Vice President for Comcast in Atlanta. “By activating our Wi-Fi network today, we can help more people stay connected at a very critical time.”

Comcast Preparations and Customer Tips for Hurricane Irma

Comcast is also making extensive preparations at its facilities, including staging emergency generators and fuel trucks, as well as bringing in additional technical and network restoration teams that are ready to be deployed as the storm’s path becomes clearer.

Comcast’s goal is to work to restore any services impacted for customers as quickly as possible and as soon as it is safe for its employees to do so. Customers should remember that emergency management procedures in South Carolina dictate that power must be restored first and Comcast must receive clearance that it is safe for its crews to begin any restoration work.

If Comcast services are down in an area because of a power outage, local power must be restored before video, phone and internet services can begin working again.

Customer tips:

• The most effective way to get outage updates and information about Comcast services is to visit www.Xfinity.com/MyAccount or to access the Xfinity My Account app from any secure, internet-enabled mobile device.
• If customers have electrical power but Xfinity service has not yet come back on, Comcast recommends that customers restart or reset devices, including wireless gateways, modems, routers and cable boxes.
• Customers should unplug their equipment or use a surge protector to plug in TVs, modems and cable boxes so that when power is restored, those devices aren’t damaged by power surges.
• Customers can chat online with an agent or visit customer.xfinity.com/help-and-support. Using social media, customers can connect with Comcast on Twitter at @ComcastCares, or visit @ComcastSouth for storm updates.

About Comcast Corporation
Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) is a global media and technology company with two primary businesses, Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal. Comcast Cable is one of the nation’s largest video, high-speed Internet and phone providers to residential customers under the XFINITY brand and also provides these services to businesses. NBCUniversal operates news, entertainment and sports cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, television production operations, television station groups, Universal Pictures and Universal Parks and Resorts. Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.