A Two-Year Review of our Xfinity Mobile $12/mo plan

by

We’ve had Xfinity mobile for about two years now. I figured I was overdue for an update since my initial writeup.

 

Here’s Xfinity’s pricing info: https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/learn/plan/details

 

Here’s our setup

  • We get access to Comcast through my parents.
    • I know; it’s weird.
    • If I had Comcast in my area I would simply have my own account.
  • Collectively, we have 7 lines and pay $12/mo per (shared) gig.
    • We are on a grandfathered plan because the going rate “by the gig” is now $15/mo (link).
      • From what I understand, it is expandable to 10 lines.
  • Each phone gets:
    • Unlimiting texting & calling on Verizon’s (good) network!!!!
  • An added bonus is that Xfinity mobile provides heavily subsidized phones (link).
    • For example, my daughters recently got “free” iPhone SE’s, with three catches:
      • They are obliged to stay on the plan for 2 years (hilariously inconsequential penalty given that the service is free).
      • I owed sales tax on the purchase price of the “free” phone.
      • The heavily discounted Xfinity mobile phones are almost always contingent on transferring a phone number over from another carrier.
        • Prior to Xfinity mobile, my daughters used Google Voice. It turns out that you can transfer a GV number to Xfinity for $3 and meet the terms of the Xfinity promotion (link). Woot!
          • If you don’t have GV, no worries. Get a GV number first, then port. For whatever reason, one of my daughter’s GV numbers had problems porting, so I created another one on one of my secondary Gmail accounts to port. Worth the $400 savings – $3 GV unlocking fee.
  • I recently renegotiated with Xfinity to lower my parents’ internet pricing:
    • $30/mo for 900 mbps internet for 24 months if they added a new Xfinity mobile line to our account.
      • My daughters’ $0 phones satisfied that obligation.
    • My parents have no TV through Comcast.
  • In total, Comcast is charging $30/mo + $12/gig for:
    • 7 lines of unlimited internet calling.
    • And 900 mbps internet.
      • 900 mbps internet is irrational, by the way. Streaming 4k consumes about 25 mbps. So 900 mbps would only be fully utilized when streaming 4k on 36 devices simultaneously.
        • If people understood this fact, I suspect a lot fewer people would be excited about overpaying for gig internet speeds.
  • What’s the catch?
    • You need to live in an area serviced by Comcast (or have extended family who does).
      • If you are doing this with extended family, all phones and sim cards will be sent to the primary Xfinity account holder’s physical address to prevent fraud.
    • You’d have to acknowledge that data isn’t a “need” — a heretical assertion likely to get you burned at the stake.
      • To prevent unnecessary data consumption, you have to do get used to (easily and automatically) downloading podcasts, movies, music, and maps for offline use.
    • If you go 1mb over a given Gig, you incur another $12 charge.

 

Closing remarks

  • It is absurd to overpay for cell phones (hardware + services) or internet.
  • It is absurd to overpay for internet speeds that you’ll never come close to utilizing.
    • I recently convinced a friend to negotiate his internet bill to join the plan I’m on (50mpbs). He was concerned he’d notice a performance drop going from 500mpbs to 50mpbs (a drop of 90%!). We have the same google router and I showed him how to monitor his real-time usage. With multiple devices going, his bandwidth consumption never cleared 20 mpbs.
    • A rule of thumb I’ve discovered is the following:
      • 4k streaming consumes ~25mpbs.
      • 1080 streaming consumes ~5 mpbs
  • If you don’t have access to Xfinity, consider something like Redpocket’s $5/mo prepaid plan could work well, especially when used in conjunction with Google Voice and/or Facetime when connected to wifi.

 

A Few Screenshots for the Curious

Here is their current pricing info for those not grandfathered.

 

 


Here’s the $73 receipt for my daughter’s two $400 phones. $800 (phone discount) / $873 (phone price with tax) = 91.6% discount on the new iPhones.

 

 


A screenshot of the $30/mo internet pricing after successfully adding my daughter’s two phones to the account. We received the promotion at an in-store Xfinity branch.

 

 

blank
$24 charge for 1.1gb last month. Bummer about the 0.1gb overage!!!

 

 

blank
$8.33 of taxes and fees on $24 bill. Ouch! I think this is the one place where the marginal cost of adding another line is not zero.

12 thoughts on “A Two-Year Review of our Xfinity Mobile $12/mo plan”

  1. How did you get the free iPhone deal? We have Google FI mainly because of the good deals with international travel. But the $15 for 1GB (way more than enough for two of us) is tough to pass up. We just got new phones in December 2020 (one Android and one iPhone), neither of which can be transferred over to Xfinity (even though the devices are supported by Xfinity). I see free Andoird deals with Xfinity but nothing for iPhones, so feeling the need to wait at least another year or two before switching.

    Reply

  2. You also get Peacock Premium for free through Xfinity (save $5/month). If it doesn’t come automatically with the 500 Mbps Ultrafast Internet package you can add the free Flex streaming box (but you don’t have to use Flex after activating it and the Peacock account).

    Reply

  3. I’m curious if the problems your daughter faced with porting the GV number was around missing texts, especially from other GV users? Seems like it’s a pretty common problem with GV: http://blog.2600hz.com/secrets-of-the-phone-network-why-you-cant-text

    I’ve recently become disenamoured with GV. I recently ran into a problem creating a group text with more than 7 numbers. Seemed very arbitrary to me. And I’m finding the call quality to be questionable. I really appreciate the ability to text from my computer, but then I found messages.google.com gave me the same abilities. I’m thinking about porting my number out of GV for those reasons.

    Reply

    • I agree that GV call quality isn’t perfect. For that reason, I’ve evolved to the following equilibrium with my setup:
      * Text exclusively with GV because I love texting primarily from a PC.
      * Make calls natively through xfinity mobile (with a different phone number). The few people I call (e.g. family) have an understanding of the scenario so it doesn’t confuse them. My brother has the same setup. We call each other’s Xfinity numbers and text each other’s GV accounts. If I call someone I don’t know (e.g. customer service number), then my outgoing caller ID seldom matters. If anything, they have to send a verification text to the GV number on file.

      I’m not sure what the GV porting hang-up issue was. I was pretty disappointed when I couldn’t get it to work, but the workaround of creating a new GV number for a secondary gmail address worked flawlessly. $400 is a pretty decent carrot to jump through a pretty simple hoop.

      Reply

  4. When I tell people how much I pay for my Xfinity phone plan they think I’m getting some inferior plan or there is a catch somewhere 🙂 It must be ingrained somehow that you have to pay a lot for cell service.

    Why do they give a credit for the 2yr payment plan vs paying in full? I’d rather pay for my phone in full. Its my understanding, for the credit card protections you would need to pay in full instead of monthly or does that not matter?

    Reply

    • Glad to hear from another happy Xfinity customer.

      Why do they require a 2-year commitment when giving subsidies? It’s pretty standard practice in the industry to ensure loyalty. They are subsidizing purchases up front to guarantee downstream revenues. In the event of the two “free” iPhones, the commitment is inconsequential given the “free” plan (or, more precisely, the no marginal cost plan).

      Why wouldn’t I purchase the two iPhones upfront without subsidies? Because $0 << $400*2.

      Reply

      • I wasn’t thinking of the loyalty of it. I agree its better to get the credit and have the 0%. I just don’t like the ‘payments’ part of it, and adding to my monthly bills.

        Reply

        • I agree broadly that I prefer not dealing with payments. However, when massive subsidies are involved, then I can be convinced to make payments.

          Reply

Leave a Reply