Kunle Ekundare: Bringing a New Product to Life

Kunle Ekundare, Senior Director of Product Development, is one of the product engineers that helped bring the new next generation Xfinity xFi Gateway to life. We spoke with Kunle about the significance of WiFi 6, his experience as an engineer and a former member of the customer service team, as well as Comcast’s culture.

Q: We hear a lot of buzz about WiFi 6. What is it and how will it improve the consumer Internet experience through the WiFi capable xFi Advanced Gateway?

A: WiFi 6 is the next generation standard in WiFi technology – it will be the most advanced WiFi technology on the market yet, bringing consumers optimal WiFi performance in their homes. WiFi 6 technology provides 20-25 percent increased coverage in the home – this means high-speed WiFi will reach more areas throughout the home. Consumers who leverage WiFi 6 technology will also experience faster speeds and improved network throughput, which eliminates the lag and congestion one may experience as the number of devices in their home increases.

For gamers, a key feature of WiFi 6 is improved latency, which will give gamers in particular a much more seamless experience with less delay or freezing during games.

And, WiFi 6 improves the battery life on your mobile devices. So, for those of us who typically have to charge our phones multiple times a day, WiFi 6 will actually enable your devices to operate more efficiently on the battery you have.

Q: Do you test the devices and gateways you help create in your own home?

A: I bring devices in the early stages of incubation into my own home for testing. My children are very used to having products at home that aren’t fully baked, and they are quick to give me feedback on how these products can be better. They get an opportunity to play with everything before its even close to launching, and I get to experience our products in my real environment to understand what tweaks need to be made before I can feel proud to deliver the product to our customers.

Q: In your previous role, you worked in Customer Service Strategy and Operations. How did that role help you design products?

A: Through my work on the customer service team, I realized how important it is to engage with our technicians and call center employees in the product design process. The way I see it, we have two sets of customers: internal customers who help support and install our products, and external end user customers like my mom, your mom, and our friends. When I go to BBQs, I talk about my job and elicit feedback from other customers to understand how we can be better. I always take personal experience, feedback from technicians, and comments from family members and friends back to the team to help us design products we can be proud of.

Q: You’ve worked at Comcast for almost two decades. Tell me about the company’s culture in your own words.

A: Comcast has truly become an innovation company where we’re not afraid to push the envelope with our new products and features. I really admire how leaders throughout the organization give their teams the leeway to take risks and challenge conventional thinking. We truly have an open environment to make space for new ideas. This allows us to have discussions that help us deliver the best products and services to our customers.