I know this subject comes up many times and I've always read the posts. I've been an ATT customer for many, many years and added Direct TV a few years back. I'm tired of renegotiating the pricing every couple years when they slide up the price as they always do. Tired of the higher $175-$180 range for basic with just the few added stations you get with the choice pkg...something like 5 or 6 extra channels.

I'm not ready to completely reorganize to the OTA TV and ROKU, DVR, and Amazon Fire type stuff. I just would like to possible swap from the ATT Direct to Xfinity. I understand many undesirable things are with both, but I'm just tired of the ATT customer service and creeping prices. At least with Xfinity I can lock in a 2-year agreement up front, and even with the channels plus HBO with their triple play offer it's still only like $115.

I do use the wi-fi connection for Ring Doorbell device and it works well, I'd definitely like to keep a good connection. Any customers of Xfinity that use the Ring devices with their wi-fi here care to comment?

Any help would be appreciated before going into battle with these two companies, both pro's and cons appreciated, thanks.

I had Xfinity back in Texas and service was good.

I had a Ring doorbell/camera with Xfinity and the Ring was intermittent - low wifi connection which lead to poor image quality. Not sure if that was the crap Xfinity router (have ATT in NC, internet only, recently upgraded to Netgear Orbi mesh router system, much better for now) or some other incompatibility.

Have gone full on cable cutter but haven't found a good substitute for the cable TV service. Have tried ATT Direct-TV Now and YouTube TV...neither is worth $50 per month, and ATT, like you say, creeps up their pricing...

Your high speed internet will be MUCH better and faster from Xfinity than anything AT&T could have given you.

They will want to lease you a modem/gateway which you DO NOT have to if you don't want to. I have an Arris (formerly Motorola) Surfboard DOCSIS 3.0 modem and an ASUS WiFi router and they work just fine and I get 100-150 Mbps consistently. There are some bells and whistles with their gateway that you won't see with your own gear but I rather not pay them any extra.

Keep in mind that you have to play the game with them too as your "deal" WILL expire and they will try to jack up your rates. Watch out for "fees" too which can easily turn that $115 into $135 or more.

As long as you have a good WiFi signal (ie don't put your router far away from your Ring doorbell on the other side of the house, or get repeaters) you shouldn't have any issues.

quote:

Originally posted by just1tym:
I'm tired of renegotiating the pricing every couple years when they slide up the price as they always do.

You'll have to do that with Comcast/Xfinity, too.

Our Internet-only Comcast contract would have been up in March. Regular CS could only offer me a plan that would have roughly doubled the bill. Hiked on over to the Retentions Dept., where they essentially renewed our existing deal with a bump to 75Mb/s. (Our existing tier no longer exists.)

N.B.: We're on Business High-Speed Internet. Our contracts are for three years.

TBH: If you're looking for a significant reduction in monthly charge the only way you're ever going to realize it is dumping the legacy subscription TV services and going to OTA + streaming services. And, with the Balkanization of streaming services, even then only if you're willing to lose some stuff.

PASig is correct: For most of its footprint the thing that calls itself "at&t" can't offer anywhere near the bandwidths Comcast/Xfinity can. Heck, when I renewed a couple weeks ago Comcast/Xfinity could have sold me gigibit service--and that's on cable.

Comcast/Xfinity has been laying fiber all over the place around here, and we're semi-rural.

A word of caution about the Surfboard cable modem...if you go with a really high speed package, that modem might not be able to handle it. I had the Surfboard modem and when I upgraded to something like 150 mbps, the modem wouldn't download at that paid-for speed. So here is my internet/WiFi setup now...

NETGEAR DOCSIS 3.1 Gigabit Cable Modem. Max download speeds of 6.0 Gbps, For XFINITY by Comcast, Spectrum, and Cox. Compatible with Gig-Speed from Xfinity (CM1000)
Link

NETGEAR Nighthawk Smart WiFi Router (R7000) - AC1900 Wireless Speed (up to 1900 Mbps) | Up to 1800 sq ft Coverage & 30 Devices | 4 x 1G Ethernet and 2 USB ports | Armor Security
Link

My current plan has a download speed (according to Ookla) of 198 mbps, which is probably overkill for what I really need. But I'm VERY satisfied with the quality of Xfinity's internet service. Cut the cable cord 3 or 4 years ago and have a Roku box, which friggin' ROCKS THE HOUSE! I primarily watch NHL during hockey season and watch TV via YouTube TV...it's the shiznit. I also have subscriptions to Netflix and Prime, but ROKU has their app with a VAST assortment of TV and movies for FREE...have very short ads in the middle of the programming which lasts maybe a minute or so.

I use Xfinity for internet, and fuboTV for tv. I am pleased with both.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:

A word of caution about the Surfboard cable modem...if you go with a really high speed package, that modem might not be able to handle it. I had the Surfboard modem and when I upgraded to something like 150 mbps, the modem wouldn't download at that paid-for speed.

You probably had an older DOCSIS 2.0 modem then.

Anything you buy now will be DOCSIS 3.0 or 3.1

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by just1tym:
I'm tired of renegotiating the pricing every couple years when they slide up the price as they always do.

You'll have to do that with Comcast/Xfinity, too.

Yea, I figured as much. Thanks for all the info. AT&T used to let me renegotiate for 2yrs but the last few they only allowed for a year at a time. I'm currently just doing the preliminary digging. I've heard it suggested to ask for the retention dept instead of the normal overseas reps. I'll try that first and if I can't get any reasonable deal I'll likely give Xfinity a go. Experience wise from what I've read over the years from those here, their business practices are similar. At least I see the packages do have the 2yr plans off the bat, thats a plus anyway.

Good info about the different routers, placement etc, thanks all.

One thing to consider is that if you buy internet service from Xfinity they may offer in your area xfinity mobile service. They essentially resell Verizon cell service under the Xfinity brand for a fraction of Verizon’s price. Our two line family plan with 3 gigs of shared data went from $198 monthly with Verizon to $24 monthly with Xfinity With no drop in quality or consistency of service. It’s a good way to mitigate the cost of Xfinity’s cable/internet service.

Also, it’s counterintuitive but see if your cable/internet cost will go down if you add a landline to the package. You don’t have to even use the landline. Just letting them install one can drop your total.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Your high speed internet will be MUCH better and faster from Xfinity than anything AT&T could have given you.

<snip>

I get 100-150 Mbps consistently.

I have AT&T gigabit fiber and consistently get over 950 Mbps both up and down on computers with wired connections.

Even before I got fiber, I always got speeds well over 100 Mbps.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Your high speed internet will be MUCH better and faster from Xfinity than anything AT&T could have given you.

<snip>

I get 100-150 Mbps consistently.

I have AT&T gigabit fiber and consistently get over 950 Mbps both up and down on computers with wired connections.

Even before I got fiber, I always got speeds well over 100 Mbps.

According to an OOKLA test I just ran the figures are as follows:

PING- 26
Download- 17.93Mbps
Upload- 4.67Mbps

My figures compared to others here is at a crawl.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:


I have AT&T gigabit fiber and consistently get over 950 Mbps both up and down on computers with wired connections.

Holy smokes!

I have a plan that is *supposed* to get 200 Mbps but need to relocate my router upstairs, it's in my basement and I think all the metal duct work nearby is hurting performance.

quote:

Originally posted by just1tym:

According to an OOKLA test I just ran the figures are as follows:

PING- 26
Download- 17.93Mbps
Upload- 4.67Mbps

If that is DSL, that's about as good as it will ever get.

I have ATT internet service and ROKU TV. Also have HULU Live. Dumped Xfinity and am very happy.

quote:

Originally posted by M'headSig:
One thing to consider is that if you buy internet service from Xfinity they may offer in your area xfinity mobile service. They essentially resell Verizon cell service under the Xfinity brand for a fraction of Verizon’s price. Our two line family plan with 3 gigs of shared data went from $198 monthly with Verizon to $24 monthly with Xfinity With no drop in quality or consistency of service. It’s a good way to mitigate the cost of Xfinity’s cable/internet service.

Also, it’s counterintuitive but see if your cable/internet cost will go down if you add a landline to the package. You don’t have to even use the landline. Just letting them install one can drop your total.

If you add Xfinity Voice, you MUST use their Gateway (Modem/Router). You can't provide you own device to avoid the monthly fee in that case so that's an add'l cost. Further, the default configuration for the Gateway provides WiFi Access Point functionality, which is available to other Xfinity customers not on your account, which can affect your available bandwidth.

It should also be noted that any Xfinity 'bundle' pricing is only good for 2 years (they call it 'SurePrice'), after which there will be a SIGNIFICANT price increase, and you'll need to renegotiate with them. At that point, none of the REALLY good pricing is available to you as you're not a 'new customer' anymore.

Xfinity internet sucked for me so I changed about a year ago to Google Fiber. It's been fantastic even though Google is the Devil.

Xfinity TV was superb, however.

Love the remote. Love the selection. I miss that part but the wifi is so poor I don't see myself going back.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:


I have AT&T gigabit fiber and consistently get over 950 Mbps both up and down on computers with wired connections.

Holy smokes!

I have a plan that is *supposed* to get 200 Mbps but need to relocate my router upstairs, it's in my basement and I think all the metal duct work nearby is hurting performance.

To be fair, in some markets Comcast offers gigabit, too.

It's pretty tough to get 200 Mbps+ consistently over WiFi.

To begin with, all the marketing numbers for WiFi are different than everything else. A 100 Mbps Ethernet connection is 100 Mbps both ways. A 100 Mbps internet service is usually 100 Mbps down and a smaller number up, although sometimes it's 100 Mbps both ways.

A 100 Mbps WiFi router is 50 up, 50 down.

To add to that, the really high speed WiFi standards are very sensitive to interference and signal degradation - to the point that walking to the other end of the room from the router can cause speeds to start to drop. In real world use, you'll almost never see even half the quoted speed (after splitting it into up/down ) on the box.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
To be fair, in some markets Comcast offers gigabit, too.

As I noted, above: I can get it here, and I'm still on cable.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
To be fair, in some markets Comcast offers gigabit, too.

As I noted, above: I can get it here, and I'm still on cable.

I think the last AT&T package I had before the switch to fiber was something like 300 Mbps down/50 up, which was the highest speed residential service AT&T offered in my area.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Your high speed internet will be MUCH better and faster from Xfinity than anything AT&T could have given you.

They will want to lease you a modem/gateway which you DO NOT have to if you don't want to. I have an Arris (formerly Motorola) Surfboard DOCSIS 3.0 modem and an ASUS WiFi router and they work just fine and I get 100-150 Mbps consistently. There are some bells and whistles with their gateway that you won't see with your own gear but I rather not pay them any extra.

Keep in mind that you have to play the game with them too as your "deal" WILL expire and they will try to jack up your rates. Watch out for "fees" too which can easily turn that $115 into $135 or more.

As long as you have a good WiFi signal (ie don't put your router far away from your Ring doorbell on the other side of the house, or get repeaters) you shouldn't have any issues.

Great info all. PA, when you say watch out for the fees, are you talking about some kind of fee that they add on to the monthly bill? I see that nhracecraft mentions fee's for the Xfinity Voice, are these the types of fees your talking about?

My needs are to have something like the advertised Triple Play for something like $90 mo for the 2yr contract. I do understand going into renegotiations after the two years but if they are strict about pricing policy, I'd hate for them to jump right away to $150 or higher. If they normally do this I'd be better served just keeping AT&T.

I do plan to try and renegotiate with their retention dept this week and give it a go. The last negotiation they offered an upgrade to my wifi speed but settled with a simple channel cut plan to their choice pkg. So they do have faster internet speeds with the wifi. My Ring doorbell works fine currently and the doorbell is mounted on a concrete wall next to the front metal hurricane reinforced door, and a straight shot about 30-35' to the audio room where the wifi router is currently. Though I do have an a/c outlet on a wall between the doorbell and my current router by an office desk that a new router can be plugged in, if necessary.

Though the Xfinity voice sounds like a good feature, if I have to start tacking on a lot of extra monthly fees, it's not necessary.

The grass is always greener with the other guy.
Having dealt with them all there is no true joy.
I have found Comcast is faster and ATT is more reliable.
After a certain speed most won't notice much of any bandwidth changes.
There are exceptions and circumstances but doing the "bandwidth test" is more for personal satisfaction and marketing than an effective measure of quality.
I use Comcast for TV, ATT for Internet with a modest speed and have no issues running my own servers including mail, FTP remote access and regular daily use.
Maybe more speed would help but I don't suffer any performance.
YMMV

Also most will "test" through a wifi connections and that is completely wrong and is not how to evaluate Internet bandwidth.