From Xfinity to NOW Internet: A Budget-Friendly Switch with a Costly Setup

Recently, I switched from Xfinity Internet to NOW Internet. Not really much of a switch, as NOW is by Xfinity.

This seems odd, but consider that Cricket Wireless is owned by AT&T and that Visible Wireless is owned by Verizon. The big cell phone services also own budget services. Well, Xfinity is a big Internet service that owns a budget Internet Service.

I mentioned the other day that it was a pain to set up my NOW Internet service. That's true. It was a horrible experience. However, there were a couple of things going on. First, I did this at night. Now, to be sure, that's not an excuse. If they want to offer 24 hour support, they should offer good support for 24 hours each day. Besides, I don't think any of the people I spoke with were in the USA. It was daylight hours wherever they were, so this wasn't the "night crew" I was talking with.

Next, I wasn't exactly a new customer. I had Xfinity Internet, and they were converting me. I don't think the process is for Xfinity customers. I mean, they were getting over $60/month from me, so they have no incentive to make it easy for me to cut that to $30/month.

The process involves completely canceling Xfinity service before they can set up NOW service. When I got home from the Xfinity store, I still had Xfinity service. When I changed out the equipment, the online process failed.

Several times, I was told to go to my laptop to open chat as it doesn't show on the phone. Only, if I don't have Internet service, how do I do that? Okay, the answer is to turn on my cell phone hot-spot and use that. But what about people that don't have that option? This process is extremely flawed.

I got home about 7:30 PM and started the process. I'm going by memory here, but I think it was 7:31 when I started. The equipment, which was a refurbished Xfinity gateway (modem and router), included instructions on self-install, beginning with a Web address that actually tried to download the Xfinity app. Having the Xfinity app already, I went through the process. After some minutes of attempting to process, it failed.

Starting over, I tried again. Several minutes and a failure. This went on for a bit. I considered that perhaps I was skipping a step or overlooking something, so I tried again. And again. And again. Every time, it failed with a notice to call. So, I called.

This was about an hour into the process (8:28 PM), and it didn't go well. The automated process didn't have an option for failing to register the device. I tried every option I could, but ended up going in circles, and was finally disconnected. Note that I didn't hang up, it said for me to try again later and disconnected the call. This happened three times.

Finally, on the third try, I reached a human. Not at first, mind you. It took quite some doing, but I eventually ended up with a sentient human. For the next hour and 9 minutes (really) I spoke with the person who took a little time to understand what I was saying. She couldn't help me.

Before the end of the call, I was on chat in the app with someone who was trying to help. Of course, I was transferred a few times but finally was on chat with someone who seemed able to help me. I ended the phone call and focused on the chat. It still took over 30 minutes, but he got excited suddenly and said he thought he found the problem. Turns out the activation of the modem was hung up because the registration of the modem wasn't complete. The process had begun during my initial app usage four hours earlier, but didn't complete. The app wouldn't let it start, and the activation couldn't happen because the registration wasn't complete. It was in limbo, and nothing else would work.

The final technician was able to trace everything through and found the problem. He asked me to hold while he completed a process. While I was waiting, the app disconnected.

So, I started over. Only this time, the app didn't fail at the same point. That was exciting. I tried again a few minutes later, and it got a little farther before it hung up. Finally, it recognized my equipment. My modem was registered and activated. Despite the app disconnecting me from the technician, the technician completed the process and things finally began working.

At 11:53 PM, I was able to connect to the Internet using my new NOW Internet service. I was happy, finally. But I'm not happy with the process. It shouldn't have taken over 4 hours to register and authorize a modem that Comcast supplied on a Comcast Internet service.

My Streaming Life will enjoy the lower cost Internet. I didn't enjoy what I had to go through to get it.