Xfinity Mobile has updated its wireless plans. Xfinity is now offering multi-line discounts on its unlimited data plan. For single lines, the unlimited plan is priced at $45/month with taxes and fees costing extra. The price drops down to as low as $30/line for subscribers with 4 lines. Additionally, the Motorola one 5G ace will be made available for free to both new and existing customers when they add a line of service. A press release announcing the changes was sent out by Xfinity Mobile through BusinessWire this morning. The press release seems to have been filled with some truth-bending statements. Let's take a closer look at what was said in the release and take a deeper dive into the updated unlimited plan.
Addressing Xfinity's Press Release Claims
Xfinity Mobile's press release claims that Xfinity has the lowest entry point for an unlimited data plan in the market. Specifically, the release reads: "Starting at $45 for one line, the lowest entry price for unlimited data in the market, unlimited pricing for Xfinity Mobile is now $80 for two lines, $100 for three lines, and $120 for four lines ($30 per line)." Unfortunately, this is a bit of a stretch both for the word unlimited and lowest entry price.
For starters, Xfinity Mobile doesn't even offer a truly unlimited data plan. The plan only comes with 20GB of high-speed data each month before speeds get throttled. After that allotment is reached, data speeds are reduced to a maximum of 1.5Mbps download and 750Kbps upload. The throttled speeds are certainly faster and more useable than the industry standard of 2G data speeds. Still, BestMVNO and many other industry experts consider unlimited data to mean unlimited data that does not come with speed restrictions.
Just to clarify for all carriers the meaning of the term "unlimited" 1 : lacking any controls : unrestricted unlimited access. 2 : boundless, infinite unlimited possibilities. Yeah capped plans are Not unlimited..when will @FCC put an end to this misleading advertising.?
— Peter Adderton (@peter_adderton) January 8, 2021
Furthermore, video streaming on the plan is typically limited to a resolution of 480p and mobile hotspot is typically restricted to maximum speeds of 600Kbps. Customers with a 5G capable device connected to 5G will have video streams at higher resolutions and will not have the 600Kbps limit on hotspot, at least for the first 20GB.
The next claim that needs to be addressed is that Xfinity Mobile simply does not have the lowest entry point for "unlimited data" in the market no matter how they wish to define what unlimited data is. Xfinity's "unlimited plan" does not include taxes and fees. Those cost extra. Furthermore, the price of the plan increases by $25 per line if the primary account holder does not maintain at least one of the following, Xfinity TV, Internet, or Voice post-pay service. That means the price of the plan shoots up to $70/month before taxes and fees. That's far from the cheapest entry point for "unlimited data." Still, let's use Xfinity's best pricing models to see how their plans stack up to some of the others in the industry.
| Number Of Lines | Xfinity Mobilee | Metro by T-Mobilet | US Mobilet | Visiblet | Spectrum Mobilet |
| 1 | $45 | $40s | $45 | $40 | $45 |
| 2 | $80 | $90 | $60 | $70 | $90 |
| 3 | $100 | $120 | $75 | $90 | $135 |
| 4 | $120 | $100s | $100 | $100 | $180 |
t = taxes and fees included in price shown
e = costs extra for taxes and fees
s = switcher promo price
From the table above we can see that there are at least two truly unlimited data plans on the market with flat-out cheaper pricing. Both Visible and Metro offer truly unlimited data plans that don't get throttled once a certain amount of data gets consumed in a month. It should be noted that Metro's plan is a switcher promotional offering that is not available to everyone on Metro. Visible's plan is available to anyone. Visible has a sister brand in Yahoo Mobile that also offers an unlimited plan for $39.99/month, so it too is cheaper than Xfinity.
Next up to compare is US Mobile. Unlike Xfinity Mobile, US Mobile's plan is truly unlimited. On the surface, it might look like the two plans start with the same pricing, but they do not. US Mobile's plans include taxes and fees, Xfinity Mobile's do not. US Mobile is a cheaper unlimited plan option than Xfinity all across the board for both single and multiple line customers.
Now let's look at Spectrum Mobile. Spectrum Mobile's unlimited plan appears to start at the same price as Xfinity Mobile's. But just like US Mobile, Spectrum's plan includes taxes and fees. Spectrum Mobile's "unlimited plan" therefore is a lower point of entry into the market than Xfinity's. Like Xfinity Mobile, Spectrum's plan isn't truly unlimited either. After customers use more than 20GB of data in a month, data speeds get reduced to a maximum of 1Mbps download and 512Kbps upload. The plan does however include 5GB of hotspot at full speeds before throttling to 600Kbps for the remainder of the billing cycle. Spectrum also requires its customers to subscribe to Spectrum Internet or the price of the phone plan increases by $20/month.
Xfinity Mobile's unlimited plan does have a couple of other limitations. The fine print reads that service is "initially limited to up to two lines under a device payment plan, pending activation of Internet service." So if you have more than two lines and need to purchase more than two phones on a payment plan, you may not be able to put all your lines on the plan at once. The other limitation is fairly standard. During times of network congestion, data speeds may be temporarily slowed until the congestion gets relieved.
Xfinity Mobile is an MVNO of Verizon. Although BestMVNO does not find the way they advertised and marketed their unlimited plan today to be totally straightforward, Xfinity Mobile's unlimited plan still provides good value to consumers assuming they subscribe to one of the other required Xfinity services. What separates the plan from many other providers on the market that claim to offer an unlimited plan, is that data speeds are still usable once the monthly high-speed data allotment gets used up. Many other providers that claim to offer an unlimited data plan have data speeds reduced to 2G or about 128Kbps once their plan's high-speed data allotment gets consumed during a billing cycle. At 2G speeds, data isn't really all that useful for most things.
Aside from the above controversy, Xfinity Mobile has strange line discounting all the way down to $240/10 lines @ https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/learn/plan/details . Who (other than businesses) can coordinate 10 folks together on 1 cell plan?
A year or two ago it was reasonable to blame Verizon for keeping “real” unlimited data away from its MVNO partners. But now U.S. Mobile (and I guess Visible/Yahoo) show that it’s not the Big V that’s behind Xfinity’s latest “limited unlimited” misrepresentation.
Your nose is growing again, Comcast.