AT&T Fiber offer ($40/mo/year) vs xfinity retention offer

[henni]

Our street just had AT&T Fiber connections installed on the 12 ft easement on other side of sidewalk and a friendly door knock caught me today.

The gentleman knew we had xfinity cable (we have 2 gb speed with our own Arris modem) and basic TV channels (no physical TV but we use online streams on browsers/tablets).
Our total bill with all fees, taxes, surcharges is $119/mo.

The AT&T fellow also knew we had AT&T Uverse at a 2nd home and several AT&T prepaid numbers (one annual payment which costs $25/month per phone).
He offered to bump up the 50 mb speed at the Uverse location (no TV, just internet) to 300 mb speed at a lower cost ($50 vs currently paid $55) with AT&T Fiber there as well.
He made an offer for AT&T Fiber at 1 gb speed for $40 month the first 12 months, a $150 Visa Gift Card, no contract and after 12 months the bill goes to $60/month.

Fired up a chat with xfinity who immediately sent us to Xfinity Customer Retention (did not say I would cancel cable, just asked what counteroffer we may consider vs AT&T offer).
The xfinity offer is valid with an upcoming program end of next week for 2 gb internet at $60 / month.
No details yet on what the basic dozen tv channels as streamed would cost.

Will wait to see what the "final cost" for the xfinity counteroffer will be.

 

[Klutch9]

I would run away from Xfinity as fast as you can. Their service is fine, but they are the worst to deal with. Period.

 

[SevenBizzos]

Two+ years ago I left AT&T when they refused to lower my price. I moved to Xfinity. I called two weeks before cancelling AT&T to warn them it was coming unless they lowered their price. They refused. Then after the Xfinity install I called to cancel. NOW they wanted to talk. Talking was over.
Same thing happened with Xfinity. Two week warning, no deal. Cancelling, let's talk.
Now I'm locked in for 10 years at one price. I may be retired and moved by then.
They won't talk until it's too late.

 

[macarose]

Keep me in the loop my contract with Xfinity ends on March 31st. They wanted me to stick with a 5 year contract for $40 a month at 350 mb speed.

I said no thanks. Absolutely not interested in anything more than a year.

 

[henni]

One additional tidbit was that AT&T fellow said "...if Xfinity charges you anything to leave them, AT&T will pay the fees...".

I've had no issues with xfinity customer service for well over a decade and every year I have renegotiated prices despite having longer terms for specific prices.

Online chat with a representative (african continent, singapore, middle east, india etc) has worked out well.

 

[Pew]

Did Xfinity mention what the price will be after a year?

Can at&t guarantee $60/month even after 3 years with them?

I've luckily never had to deal with Xfinity home customer support [yet] but I have had to deal with their business account managers....at&t business account managers are way better and their normal non-business customer service was surprisingly good (account issues, non-technical, made sure I had all my ducks in order before calling.)

 

[dbias]

Two+ years ago I left AT&T when they refused to lower my price. I moved to Xfinity. I called two weeks before cancelling AT&T to warn them it was coming unless they lowered their price. They refused. Then after the Xfinity install I called to cancel. NOW they wanted to talk. Talking was over.
Same thing happened with Xfinity. Two week warning, no deal. Cancelling, let's talk.
Now I'm locked in for 10 years at one price. I may be retired and moved by then.
They won't talk until it's too late.

The trick is to have deal lined up to potentially move to and call to cancel, not to ask for a better deal. Until you say cancel to the IVR or a human you will not talk to the final masters in the retention department.
I have had xfinity at my house for almost thirty years, out of necessity, as the only other option was frontier dial up. Last year frontier fiber trucks descended upon my neighborhood and after a few weeks a door hanger appeared for 500 mb for 29.99 for two years.
I had been pay 80 plus tax For Xfinity 300 mb for years so I called chatted xfinity and simply said to cancel my service. They asked why and I told them I was moving to the Frontier Fiber offer that became available in my neighborhood. They instantly upped my speed to 500 mb and price matched them and I didn’t have to endure an install by frontier. ( I knew being a newly installed network that frontier service would be a nightmare for a while till all the bugs were fixed and I was right as my neighbors have suffered greatly, the ol early adopter tax lol)
I’ve always had DirecTV satellite, so TV service with either internet service was not a factor.

 

[Zee09]

AT&T had the highest prices and horrible cell service here. It's not the AT&T of the past. No thanks....

 

[samven]

Verizon just bought our local phone co (Frontier) and has installed FIOS into our area. They are offering a 500/500 service for $34/mo with first 3 mos free. I have no idea what they will do after the first year but install is free and right now the only service we have is Starlink or 4G. I ordered it and this will be the first time since I moved here 15 yrs ago I will be able to stream anything.

 

[Olds394]

I’ve called to cancel Xfinity, only to be “transferred”, and hung up on.
It eventually takes a half hour of saying no, then they ask again.
When I cancel I’m taking the modem to the store and getting a receipt.

 

[henni]

I’ve called to cancel Xfinity, only to be “transferred”, and hung up on.
It eventually takes a half hour of saying no, then they ask again.
When I cancel I’m taking the modem to the store and getting a receipt.

Couple tips that worked well over a decade.

1. Own your modem, have no xfinity equipment
2. Do not call, use online chat and use the word "representative" inside a first line obscure line to the chatbot. That gets a live human on the chat.

 

[SOUNDMAN5000]

So whats your UPLOAD speed OP? We only getting 1/2 the picture?
If Xfinity copper is limiting you to say under 40 mbps like Spectrum is me ( 1 Gb Down 40 mbps up ) Symmetrical fiber may be a clear winner...
I'm a easy target, that $150 Viza would buy me a nice dinner and I would have jumped on his offer!

 

[Touring5]

I hate comcast but if you're happy with them, take their offer.

I jumped to ATT fiber as soon as it became available about 4 years ago but the price has really risen since. I now have 500M up/down and my monthly bill is around $90.

ATT claims to have consistent pricing, but I don't believe it. Also, as I understand it, you're pretty much locked into using their gateway hardware although it's quite configurable and easy to put in bypass mode.

 

[alarmguy]

I don’t do contracts, low price wins, anything over 300/300 service is a waste of money for most normal households.
With that said the providers keep bumping up speeds and you can’t even get 300/300 in many places anymore so you’re forced to pay more for bandwidth that you don’t and can’t use.

 

[Cujet]

I switched to AT&T fiber gigabit and never looked back. Love it. Bottom line AT&T services work for me.

HOWEVER, the instant I cancelled Comcast, I lost access to my comcast email. All my banks, credit cards, websites, microsoft accounts and yes even AT&T stuff was linked to the Comcast email. You know... the one they send the secret code to, so you can log in to your stuff to change your email....

Holy mother of God was that a PAIN. And the biggest pain was with AT&T, as they absolutely would not accept any documentation proving I was me, for the cellphones. And I could not cancel my phone account. Left us without phones for weeks.

I told AT&T I was going to return my new phones to Costco, cancel all payments and report to BBB. I'm never nasty on the phone, never. But the poor girl on the other end was crying. She understood how difficult AT&T was being and was frustrated she could not help.

The AT&T store was initially no help. But finally we got 'the guy' who could fix things. He scanned our birth certificates, drivers licenses, electrical bills, 30 years of AT&T invoices, passports, marriage certificate, car titles and deed to the house. Just to prove we were who we said and enable the E-Sims.

All because I could not get into Comcast email.

 

[SOUNDMAN5000]

I switched to AT&T fiber gigabit and never looked back. Love it. Bottom line AT&T services work for me.

HOWEVER, the instant I cancelled Comcast, I lost access to my comcast email. All my banks, credit cards, websites, microsoft accounts and yes even AT&T stuff was linked to the Comcast email. You know... the one they send the secret code to, so you can log in to your stuff to change your email....

Holy mother of God was that a PAIN. And the biggest pain was with AT&T, as they absolutely would not accept any documentation proving I was me, for the cellphones. And I could not cancel my phone account. Left us without phones for weeks.

I told AT&T I was going to return my new phones to Costco, cancel all payments and report to BBB. I'm never nasty on the phone, never. But the poor girl on the other end was crying. She understood how difficult AT&T was being and was frustrated she could not help.

The AT&T store was initially no help. But finally we got 'the guy' who could fix things. He scanned our birth certificates, drivers licenses, electrical bills, 30 years of AT&T invoices, passports, marriage certificate, car titles and deed to the house. Just to prove we were who we said and enable the E-Sims.

All because I could not get into Comcast email.

Yes Sir! I made the mistake 20+ years ago when I first signed up for Spectrum ( Was then Time Warner} This was long before free Gmail accounts. I used my Spectrum email to sigh up for EVERYTHING, Has been on my business cards 25 years so I'm married to that email that I loose as soon as I disconnect service. Now I have another providers 1 Gig up and down "FIBER" in front of my house but I stay with copper Spectrum ONLY because of MY email address...

As soon as I drop that old copper Spectrum internet for fiber I'll be locked out of my old email address so in turn I'll be locked out of something, Banks, Credit Cards, Cell Phone everything like you...

 

[AP9]

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is as bad as AT&T customer service.

Comcast is difficult to work with and their prices keep creeping up, but I'd take them over AT&T in an instant.