Carrier Xfinity Mobile ($250 prepaid card deal) - questions

[ftaok]

I'm hoping some forum members may have experience with putting a line onto Xfinity Mobile.

Here's what I currently have and what I'm looking to do.

I have an AT&T Family Share plan with two phones. I don't want to leave this current plan, however, I want to get my daughter a phone that she can text and call from.

My plan is to purchase an iPhone 11 for my wife (currently on iPhone 6) and pass her old phone down to my daughter.

Xfinity Mobile seems to be a good choice since for a few buck (tax and fees), she can have a phone with unlimited text and calls. She can use data (100 MB) for an emergency or just use wifi most of the time.

I'd like to be able to take advantage of the current $250 prepaid card deal. Here are the details.

See Details
Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas.

Prepaid Card offer ends 10/27/19. Requires purchase of new, qualifying iPhone while supplies last, activation of new Xfinity Mobile line and transfer of phone number from another carrier within 30 days of phone order date. Must maintain new Xfinity Mobile line with an account in good standing for 90 days following line activation. Prepaid card issued by MetaBank®, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa® U.S.A., Inc. Prepaid card mailed to Xfinity account holder within 16-18 weeks of activation of all required services and expires in 180 days. May not be combined with other offers. Not valid with prior purchases, returns or exchanges. Maximum $1,250 in prepaid card amount per customer/account. Multiple cards may be issued based on total qualifying amount.

Savings comparison to the weighted average prices of similar Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint plans. Actual savings vary and are not guaranteed.

The Xfinity Mobile logo and “o” marks are trademarks of Comcast. © 2019 Comcast. © 2019 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

The plan would be to buy the iPhone 11 from Xfinity at full price. Have Xfinity port a Google Voice number that my daughter can use. The Xfinity SIM card would go into the iPhone 6. My wife's current AT&T SIM would go into the iPhone 11.

Wait 3 months for the $250 Visa card and I'm goo.

The only thing I'm thinking is that Xfinity wants to port in a number from a wireless carrier, but it's not explicitly describe as such in their fine print. They say "carrier". Is Google Voice a "carrier"?

Has anyone done this in the past with Xfinity?

Thanks.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Three things...first...any iPhone connected to cellular data will likely use more than 100MB per month. Still, $12 for over 100MB and under 1GB of use is a great deal.

Second thing...not sure about the Xfinity (Verizon network) and AT&T switcheroo. That depends on Xfinity as well as the capabilities of the two iPhones.

The other thing is I checked just a couple of months ago and Xfinity wouldn't port a Google Voice number. It seems like they told me Vonage and one other were the only VOIP services they were capable of handling.

 

[ftaok]

Three things...first...any iPhone connected to cellular data will likely use more than 100MB per month. Still, $12 for over 100MB and under 1GB of use is a great deal.

Second thing...not sure about the Xfinity (Verizon network) and AT&T switcheroo. That depends on Xfinity as well as the capabilities of the two iPhones.

The other thing is I checked just a couple of months ago and Xfinity wouldn't port a Google Voice number. It seems like they told me Vonage and one other were the only VOIP services they were capable of handling.

Thanks for the reply.

I could limit celluar data usage on the iPhone by turning off cellular data use to all apps. I'd have to show my daughter how to turn it on, but then hope that she cognizant of making sure to be on wifi and only use LTE as an emergency. And even if she forgets, $12 isn't that big a deal.

I've checked previously and all iPhone 6 are capabile of being used on Xfinity(verizon network).

This last one, however, could be a deal killer. I did do some research and it seems that I may have to pay Google a $3 fee to "unlock" the number for porting. But if Xfinity won't accept an unlocked GV number, I'd have to do something else. Maybe sign up for a 3rd AT&T number for a month and then port that to Xfinity.

Again, thanks!

 

[MrAperture]

Doesn’t the Xfinity phone have to have the Xfinity SIM card inserted for the full 3-4 months, though? I wouldn’t even risk switching sims or trying this deal if that’s the case.

 

[C DM]

I could be somewhat off on this, but I think with a slight redesign of plans fairly recently it's now at least $12/month whether or not any data is used.

 

[nbuubu]

The other thing is I checked just a couple of months ago and Xfinity wouldn't port a Google Voice number. It seems like they told me Vonage and one other were the only VOIP services they were capable of handling.

I just placed an order today and Google Voice was one of the options for porting a number in their drop-down menu. Just had to scroll down, and it seemed to work totally fine.

Everything went through and my order still says 9/20 delivery, which I'm a bit dubious about but rolling the dice.

Worst case I keep the one I ordered from Apple, and return/cancel the XM order.

 

[ftaok]

Doesn’t the Xfinity phone have to have the Xfinity SIM card inserted for the full 3-4 months, though? I wouldn’t even risk switching sims or trying this deal if that’s the case.

Hadn't heard about this. I'll have to look into it.

I could be somewhat off on this, but I think with a slight redesign of plans fairly recently it's now at least $12/month whether or not any data is used.

Aggh. Yeah, it looks like the no-data plan only applies to accounts opened before 7/31. I'm too late. At that rate, I might as well put my daughter on our AT&T Mobile share plan.

 

[chrismichael83]

You can buy their phone full price but not sure it will be ok to use with the ATT sim right off the bat. Since XM is a MVNO it has restrictions on when it will allow the phone to be unlocked outside say 3 months of service.

 

[Killbynumbers]

Doesn’t the Xfinity phone have to have the Xfinity SIM card inserted for the full 3-4 months, though? I wouldn’t even risk switching sims or trying this deal if that’s the case.

Xfinity doesn't keep track of what phone the Sim card is actually in. I've been using one of my lines in an S10+For three months now and the website and customer service still show it's in my XS Max.

 

[nbuubu]

Xfinity doesn't keep track of what phone the Sim card is actually in. I've been using one of my lines in an S10+For three months now and the website and customer service still show it's in my XS Max.

I just got off the phone with Xfinity support and they confirmed the same thing. They need to be contacted to update which sim is in which phone to update the site. I've always swapped my xfinity sims for my different lines between phones and never had a problem.

 

[nbuubu]

fwiw the order I placed on Monday afternoon just shipped Fedex and should be here Friday. With 0% financing and hopefully the $250 gift card when I port the Google Voice number. Should be able to get a $300 gift card from apple or best buy for my old iPhone 8 Plus that doesn't really work that well on the XM network (LTE only, was an AT&T 8 Plus).

Mildly impressed by XM so far. This is my first non-BYOP line with them, so hoping for the best.

 

[MrAperture]

fwiw the order I placed on Monday afternoon just shipped Fedex and should be here Friday. With 0% financing and hopefully the $250 gift card when I port the Google Voice number. Should be able to get a $300 gift card from apple or best buy for my old iPhone 8 Plus that doesn't really work that well on the XM network (LTE only, was an AT&T 8 Plus).

Mildly impressed by XM so far. This is my first non-BYOP line with them, so hoping for the best.

Verizon is shutting down their CDMA network at the end of 2020 though. Is that what you're worried about?

 

[nbuubu]

Verizon is shutting down their CDMA network at the end of 2020 though. Is that what you're worried about?

I brought 3 phones from AT&T to XM. The 6 and 6S plus were both fine and work with the network fully. The 8 Plus was a model that I got from AT&T that for whatever reason is "LTE Only" according to XM for their network. I've lost all signal multiple times on it, so that's why it's getting replaced.

 

[chrismichael83]

fwiw the order I placed on Monday afternoon just shipped Fedex and should be here Friday. With 0% financing and hopefully the $250 gift card when I port the Google Voice number. Should be able to get a $300 gift card from apple or best buy for my old iPhone 8 Plus that doesn't really work that well on the XM network (LTE only, was an AT&T 8 Plus).

Mildly impressed by XM so far. This is my first non-BYOP line with them, so hoping for the best.

The gift card won’t come for about you 16 weeks s

 

[MrAperture]

I brought 3 phones from AT&T to XM. The 6 and 6S plus were both fine and work with the network fully. The 8 Plus was a model that I got from AT&T that for whatever reason is "LTE Only" according to XM for their network. I've lost all signal multiple times on it, so that's why it's getting replaced.

Ah, gotcha. I would be doing the same. I forgot starting with iPhone 7 that Apple started using crap Intel modems for ATT and T-Mobile. Thus not being fully compatible with all of Verizon’s bands.

 

[nottooshabby]

XM revamped their plans the beginning of August. It's $12+taxes regardless of usage up to 1GB. The free 100MB is no longer available.

I am switching to XM from Verizon as well. If my family can stay under 10GB(we usually use about 12), our bill drops from $145+taxes to $60+taxes switching from Verizon. The $250 prepaid card offer per phone is also much better than what Verizon offers existing customers to upgrade as we would have to trade-in our iPhone 7 just to get $200 off an 11 and switch to their more expensive unlimited plan. The other nice feature with XM is 3 of us could share 10 GB and we could bump one phone up to unlimited for a total of $105+taxes and still save at least $40/month.

Be careful swapping sim cards around with XM, from what I saw on the comcast forum, their can be issues, and XM doesn't handle swapping BYODs very easily.

 

[jm31828]

fwiw the order I placed on Monday afternoon just shipped Fedex and should be here Friday. With 0% financing and hopefully the $250 gift card when I port the Google Voice number. Should be able to get a $300 gift card from apple or best buy for my old iPhone 8 Plus that doesn't really work that well on the XM network (LTE only, was an AT&T 8 Plus).

Mildly impressed by XM so far. This is my first non-BYOP line with them, so hoping for the best.

What are your thoughts on XM? I have been curious about them given the low cost and the $250 they are offering. Is coverage pretty good everywhere you go? My wife and I are not heavy data users (about 3GB per month) but like the idea that we seemingly could get unlimited data (we're not concerned about it being slower than we get now with AT&T, our data usage is just for regular old web surfing) for a couple of lines for less money than we pay for our 3GB plan now. But I keep wondering if there is a "catch".

 

[Gator1pk]

Why do you want to stay with AT&T? Xfinity Mobile runs on the Verizon network. I switched from AT&T to XM 2 years ago with the release of iPhone X. XM is $45 a month, unlimited data, texts, messages. You can add up to 5 lines at no extra charge and they all share the unlimited data,etc. I saved a ton of money and upgraded my service and coverage.

XM had a delay on adding iPad’s with their own cellular as well as Apple Watch to the network, however they handle them now but (there’s always a but) they have a monthly charge for iPad and Apple Watch. I think $10/month per device. The 5 devices mentioned earlier are for phones. I tether my iPad to my iPhone so no need for iPad to have its own cellular.

 

[TheKDub]

What are your thoughts on XM? I have been curious about them given the low cost and the $250 they are offering. Is coverage pretty good everywhere you go? My wife and I are not heavy data users (about 3GB per month) but like the idea that we seemingly could get unlimited data (we're not concerned about it being slower than we get now with AT&T, our data usage is just for regular old web surfing) for a couple of lines for less money than we pay for our 3GB plan now. But I keep wondering if there is a "catch".

I'm on XM and haven't had any issues with their coverage at all and I've been all over the country with my phone. Given that they're piggybacking off of the Verizon network, it's exactly the same coverage as them which I've verified with my friends on verizon (pretty much same bars and everything).

I haven't had any issues with them for the 2 years I've been on XM. Never had any issues with my phone so I've never had to call customer service. I would say the only "catch" was that they don't have any short-term international calling plans, so if you want to go abroad - you're just stuck with their default roaming plan (vs AT&T and Verizon offer some limited data/talk international packages for short trips). I'd recommend getting a local sim in that case or just biting the bullet. But for me, the savings are well worth switching since I am on the unlimited plan, use 8-10GB a month and haven't had any problems with throttling or anything like that.

I've never tried it but you can also switch seemlessly between by the gig and unlimited each month, so at ~3GB a month, if you know that you have a potentially heavy usage month, might be worth switching to unlimited for that month.

 

[jm31828]

I'm on XM and haven't had any issues with their coverage at all and I've been all over the country with my phone. Given that they're piggybacking off of the Verizon network, it's exactly the same coverage as them which I've verified with my friends on verizon (pretty much same bars and everything).

I haven't had any issues with them for the 2 years I've been on XM. Never had any issues with my phone so I've never had to call customer service. I would say the only "catch" was that they don't have any short-term international calling plans, so if you want to go abroad - you're just stuck with their default roaming plan (vs AT&T and Verizon offer some limited data/talk international packages for short trips). I'd recommend getting a local sim in that case or just biting the bullet. But for me, the savings are well worth switching since I am on the unlimited plan, use 8-10GB a month and haven't had any problems with throttling or anything like that.

I've never tried it but you can also switch seemlessly between by the gig and unlimited each month, so at ~3GB a month, if you know that you have a potentially heavy usage month, might be worth switching to unlimited for that month.

Thanks for the info!! I will think about that for a bit. With AT&T I currently get a pretty big (23%) corporate discount due to an agreement my workplace has in place with them, but even with that discount, my 3GB plan is a touch more expensive than we'd pay at XM. Given the fact that I could get the $250 discount and could then sell my existing phone, it would almost be like getting a free iPhone 11 out of the deal. My wife has an XS Max with AT&T that we'd need to try to move over, though, so I'll have to see about compatibility there.

With AT&T we pay something like $15/month in taxes for our two lines- if you don't mind my asking, how much do you pay for taxes with XM? Is it lower since it is really just bundled with your Comcast TV/Internet package?

 

[techiegirl]

Thanks for the info!! I will think about that for a bit. With AT&T I currently get a pretty big (23%) corporate discount due to an agreement my workplace has in place with them, but even with that discount, my 3GB plan is a touch more expensive than we'd pay at XM. Given the fact that I could get the $250 discount and could then sell my existing phone, it would almost be like getting a free iPhone 11 out of the deal. My wife has an XS Max with AT&T that we'd need to try to move over, though, so I'll have to see about compatibility there.

With AT&T we pay something like $15/month in taxes for our two lines- if you don't mind my asking, how much do you pay for taxes with XM? Is it lower since it is really just bundled with your Comcast TV/Internet package?

As long as your AT&T Max is unlocked, it’ll work with Xfinity. We pay $8.59 in taxes for 5 lines.

 

[jm31828]

As long as your AT&T Max is unlocked, it’ll work with Xfinity. We pay $8.59 in taxes for 5 lines.

Wow, so I'd even save money on taxes! That is awesome.
Regarding the XS Max- it's probably not unlocked since we are still paying the monthly payments on it, it's half way paid off. If I were to go in and pay it off in full, does that cause it to get unlocked as soon as payment is processed? Or is there another process? Apologies, I am completely out of touch on that since it's never come into play for me before.

 

[techiegirl]

Wow, so I'd even save money on taxes! That is awesome.
Regarding the XS Max- it's probably not unlocked since we are still paying the monthly payments on it, it's half way paid off. If I were to go in and pay it off in full, does that cause it to get unlocked as soon as payment is processed? Or is there another process? Apologies, I am completely out of touch on that since it's never come into play for me before.

Once you pay it off, you can call AT&T to request an unlock. It could take a couple of days at most.

 

[nbuubu]

Be careful swapping sim cards around with XM, from what I saw on the comcast forum, their can be issues, and XM doesn't handle swapping BYODs very easily.

Thanks for the warning. I’m hoping it works well, but worst-case I’ll just set my main number to forward calls to the new ported phone number, and use iMessage for texting, at least until the few months for the gift card have passed when I’ll call them to properly link IMEIs with the current lines they’ll be using.

I’ve been able to swap sims around between my BYODs really easily so far, and am assuming that it shouldn’t be too terrible. The phone tech said that there might be some issues with speed and reception, but at least so far I haven’t experienced any and have heard from others on Reddit that there’s been no issues.

XM, after all, doesn’t seem to keep track of which SIM is in which device, as their site doesn’t update and a phone agent said as much.

 

[nottooshabby]

Anybody receive an email yet about the rebate being processed for their iPhone 11? We got one already for the iPhone 8 that I ordered a couple days before the iPhone 11 release date. I imagine they have a lot to process. We should get 3 more.