Xfinity NOW

Starting in April 2024 with the loss of federal funding for the Affordable Connectivity Act Xfinity began to offer an amazing offer for two low cost low tier internet plans. These plans are offered without any need for household income pre qualification, no hidden fees, no introductory rates set to expire and the best part there are no price hikes. There is a catch though and in order to get these amazing priced plans you can’t live in a neighborhood serviced by fiber internet.

Can’t Get Xfinity NOW Services In Store

Xfinity customer phone sales lied to me and said I could go in store to get “Now internet” and modem but this just wasn’t true! Even when I informed the phone sales agent that “Xfinity NOW Internet” was not listed under the service activities description for my local retail address on their own Xfinity “service locator” page he continued to bold face lie and insist that I could walk in and get the necessary modem.

⛔️ A common sales tactic used by many unethical businesses such as car dealerships etc.. is to withhold certain information like over the phone pricing or direct phone numbers in order lure unsuspecting customers into a physical retail location where sales employees can use predatory pressure tactics on unsuspecting consumers.

There was no direct phone number to my local store so I went there in person. This was a mistake as the employees at my location lied to me, miss directed me promising he could get me my Xfinity NOW modem before I left the store but first I needed to cancel my account and sign up in store so I could access his local inventory of modems. As soon as I canceled my account he then began the sales push to get me to sign up for the high Commision expensive unprotected regular priced $90.00 account with an introductory price for one year of $19.00. He flat out lied to me and I caught him in the lie and I learned the hard way that you cannot activate Xfinity Now services in my local retail location.

It was this horrific bold face lie and in store experience that directly lead to 99% of the install and set up issues that followed.

#1. Order online

Be aware that when ordering services over the weekend that the order will not be processed for shipping until Monday. My modem shipped from the Xfinity shipping center out of Colorado to me in Utah and it took 3 days to arrive.

⚠️⚠️⚠️ You can’t use your own modem because as soon as your order is placed into the system the Xfinity NOW fulfillment center will assign a modem from their warehouse to the customer account and ship it to the account address on file. The modem ID that is assigned to the customer account has to match the information that is in the customer account otherwise the modem will not be recognized by then Xfinity network and internet connection will never occur.

#2. Customer Service

The Xfinity NOW accounts are prepaid accounts and are handled differently than the higher priced billed accounts. So in store locations can’t help Xfinity NOW customers. My in home tech had to be re directed through various phone trees until he was connected to the correct Xfinity NOW department.

Right off the bat before my Xfinity account could ever be activated I was neck high in issues that required in person and phone tech support. These issues were in part to blame on the in store sales employees. ❤️🎉 I had a tech support team at my home within 24 hours of my reported problems.

🎉⚠️ The Xfinity Now app is minimalist at best and when first setting it up there are no customer service phone numbers or any direct chat options to speak with a live agent. However if there is a problem with the modem set up or if the app detects an issue of serviceability then an option button “speak with live agent” will auto generate in the app chat box. Customers are auto connected to a live agent within as little as one minute. This is by far a better customer service experience than I ever had in the last two months nearly daily online chats and calls to Century Link Customer service.

Unknown to me I needed my house connected to Xfinity service. My house had its pre existing Xfinity Coax service cable cut from my home at some point and needed a new cable installed from the house to the mainline. A complete in home set up activating one pre existing coax outlet for the modem was also done.

At this point my modem would not communicate with the Xfinity network. Due to issues brought onto my account by the Xfinity store employees. I was experiencing issues with my modem not pairing to my account. My modem continued to be offline for the next 24 hours as the call center tech support said I needed to wait for 24hours for them to correct the issues caused in my account by the Xfinity in Store sales employee.

After waiting for 24 hours and not being contacted by Xfinity to inform me that my modem was active I used the Xfinity customer phone number and I was able to get my modem paired right away. However later the internet completely went down. I was able to use the app to immediately get a live tech support and we quickly troubleshot the issue and after a modem firmware update I was back up and running.

🎉❤️ This customer service is a stark improvement over the horrific Dehumanizing and demoralizing experience that is Century Link aka Lumen, aka Quantum.

#3. Test Internet speed

I signed up for the 100mbps and as you can see from this screenshot I am only getting half of the stated speed.

So if this is happening to you then go into the GUI modem user interface and verify which WiFi frequency you are using. Here are the instructions for accessing your modem for the first time.

It is important to note that this modem offers two different Wi-Fi frequency channels. One channel being 2.4 GHz the other channel being 5 GHz. I set up my Home mesh network on the 2.4 GHz as a lot of the smart devices are restricted to that frequency and for my streaming devices such as iPads and higher usage devices. I hooked up to the 5 GHz frequency and I noticed a drastic improvement in speed.

Overall I am satisfied with the Xfinity Now Internet and had I avoided the deceptive unethical lying sales employees in store then my set up would have been easy and fast. Instead I had to wait 48 hours after receiving my modem before I could activate my account and modem. My best advice is to avoid talking to any sales employees either on the phone or in the local stores as they will do everything they can to get you signed up on the higher priced billed accounts that guarantees them a sales commission and the consumer gets a hefty price hike after the end of the introductory period.