Comcast announced today that it is offering its network monitoring service free of charge to all Internet users.

Comcast Advanced Security, which the company launched last January, uses machine learning to examine Wi-Fi activity and block any suspicious traffic. When first released, Advanced Security was a $5.99 upgrade, but now Comcast is making it free for all Xfi Internet customers.

There is one drawback: it requires the use of an Xfinity gateway, such as the Xfi Gateway ($14/month) or the just announced Xfi Advanced Gateway (Wi-Fi 6 certified device, due out later this year).

Advanced Security will be available immediately to new Xfi customers and gradually over the next few weeks to existing Comcast customers. [In addition to blocking suspicious traffic, Advanced Security will provide customers with daily logs of what actions they have taken. It will block visits to phishing sites, block remote access to smart home devices from suspicious sources, and send alerts to customers when their smart home devices perform unusual actions, such as sending data to an unknown site.

So while you won't be able to use this service with your own cable modem, it is nice to see that Comcast is now offering the service for free, whereas it used to charge.

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