Nearly two in five consumers value reliable WiFi over gifts this holiday season, and two-thirds of parents say their kids would choose WiFi over their top toy this year. These findings released recently in a study by Xfinity, the nation’s largest Internet provider, and Wakefield Research, highlight the importance of WiFi connectivity for this year’s holiday season.
Key learnings include:
- 64% of parents say their kids would choose a month of WiFi over the gift at the top of their holiday wish list this year.
- The desire for reliable WiFi doesn’t end at the kids table, with 35% of Americans admitting WiFi is more important than gifts for their holiday celebrations.
- More holiday guests means more devices that rely on fast and reliable WiFi. As a result, one in five (19%) Americans upgraded their WiFi plan to accommodate more devices this holiday season.
- Half of Millennials (50%) and nearly as many Gen Xers (47%) strongly agree that WiFi has become more central to holiday celebrations today than before the pandemic.
- 72% of all survey respondents agree video chats and virtual gatherings have allowed them to better connect with extended family and long-distance friends during the holidays.
Xfinity xFi lets customers manage their home WiFi network and all the devices connected to it, including setting up screen time rules and parental controls. Someone at the holiday dinner table checking their phone instead of spending quality time with grandma? Xfinity xFi users can instantly pause individual devices or a profile from accessing the Internet when connected to your home network for a specific amount of time or until you unpause.
With Xfinity xFi, consumers can also see what devices are connected to their home network and give them nicknames for easy reference, create profiles to group devices by family member, receive alerts when new devices join their network, and more.
xFi also includes xFi Advanced Security, which helps protect all connected devices – including your holiday guests’ devices - at the gateway level from malware and other cyber security threats.
View the Xfinity xFi Holiday Hosting WiFi Tip Sheet to ensure your home is ready for any type of gathering - in person or virtual - this holiday season.
About the survey
The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research among 1,000 nationally representative U.S. adults ages 18 and older in November 2021, using an email invitation and an online survey. The data has been weighted to ensure reliable and accurate representation of the U.S. adult population. Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. The magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results. For the interviews conducted in this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 3.1 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the sample.
