Questions about NOW plans

Donut417

Just convinced my mom to switch to the NOW plan, specifically looking at the 100 Mbps plan. Better than paying $69/m with the stupid data cap. Which we are going over it this month.

Questions:

1) Can someone link me or tell me how to put the gateway in to bridge mode?
2) Is it easy to switch to the 200 Mbps plan if we need it? Currently have 150/40, Id image 50 Mbps less wont matter as much.
3) From placing the order to getting the gateway in the mail, how long?

havaloc

1 - it was easy to switch to bridge mode, just go to the web interface (10.0.0.1) and switch it.
2 - I haven’t, but it’s pretty easy to do it online.
3 - can’t comment, but they have them in Xfinity stores if you have one around.

smilingbob

Bridge mode is super easy, here’s a screenshot I just took of our XB3 admin panel:

I’m on OG Prepaid so don’t have an option of speed, but the Now website says you can change from 100-200Mbps at anytime.

Can I upgrade my plan from NOW100 to NOW200?
Yes, you can upgrade your NOW Internet plan any time via your online account or NOW Portal. Simply select Switch to 200 Mbps from your NOW Internet account page. Once you upgrade, you’ll enjoy instant access to the NOW200 speed tier. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/now-internet-faqs/

It took I think less than week for them to ship our XB3 to us for reference. Grats on convincing mom.

badtlc4

Donut417 If speed is your need, just go to an Xfinity store and walkout with the gateway in minutes.

Donut417

badtlc4 I just needed to know for when we choose to cancel. The bill was paid on the 23rd. So we want to cancel before the next bill is due.

Devious

Donut417 So we want to cancel before the next bill is due.

Look at any previous bill as it has the due date on it.
Example:

smilingbob

Donut417 You might get them to cancel it at a certain date and get a pro-rated refund. I did this when we briefly left Comcast to try out Verizon 5G Home+ (mistake). I think you have to put in the cancellation order BEFORE you can get Now services, so you might be able to do both at one time over the phone or at the local store.

Donut417

smilingbob Im going to try to order service online over the weekend. If it doesn’t work we can stop by a store.

Also will anything happen to our email accounts? I know a few sites I still use my Comcast email. I’m not sure if my mom uses hers or not.

smilingbob

Donut417 I am unsure about the email address, only reports that people have kept them active even after leaving Comcast altogether. https://cordcuttersnews.com/can-you-keep-your-comcast-email-account-after-you-cancel-your-tv-internet-service/

telcodad

Donut417 Also will anything happen to our email accounts? I know a few sites I still use my Comcast email. I’m not sure if my mom uses hers or not.

smilingbob Donut417 I am unsure about the email address, only reports that people have kept them active even after leaving Comcast altogether. https://cordcuttersnews.com/can-you-keep-your-comcast-email-account-after-you-cancel-your-tv-internet-service/

Also, Comcast has recently begun deleting inactive email accounts: https://broadbandbulletin.com/d/2195-comcast-deleting-inactive-email-accounts-soon

See: https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/email-activity

Donut417

telcodad Ours are not inactive. I use mine, it’s loaded on my mail app on both my iPhone and MacBook.

telcodad

Donut417 telcodad Ours are not inactive. I use mine, it’s loaded on my mail app on both my iPhone and MacBook.

Good, then it should not be deleted due to inactivity, then.

smilingbob

You guys are gonna love Prepaid. I spent years monitoring data use at our router, throttling video to 720p, strategically allowing/rejecting updates, etc. All to play the idiotic data cap game that Comcast forces upon most of us in capped Postpaid regions so as not to pay the monthly extortion “unlimited data” fee or overages. I stumbled upon Prepaid (they hated advertising it) and haven’t looked back. We are family of 4 and don’t do anything crazy, mostly 1080p video streaming, normal game downloads/updates, zoom calls, etc. I would have paid a small fortune in overages over the last 12 months.

Donut417

smilingbob We hit 1.29 TB last month. My dad used over 716 Gigs of data himself. That was mostly streaming and I dont sub to any of the 4K streaming plans and his TV is maybe 720p. Im very conscious about data usage. I leave my gaming PC off when not in use. I dont install new games or updates before I check our data usage to kinda determine if we have data left. Needless to say that strategy is not working anymore. Im heading to the local Xfinity store today and Im going to see about switching us to Prepaid, I convinced the account holder when I pulled the site up and showed the price, plus mentioning the unlimited data.

For the record my dad is retired and TV is now his whole life. Sad but true.

Devious

@smilingbob - Are you solely depending on the router stats or also checking what Comcast meter says?
I have found you cannot depend on what a router says if you do any LAN upload/download as the router will count this as traffic but Comcast does not as it only counts WAN traffic.
I had days where the router counted 600GB or more but Comcast meter said it was 100GB.
Reason was I had been downloading/uploading movies and shows from my Tivo to/from a PC and it was all LAN traffic.

smilingbob

Devious When I was on Postpaid, I was always checking the router against their shitty data counter on their website. When their meter was working properly (it was constantly breaking) my router was always within +/-5% or so. Comcast usually had less counted data than I did. There is no data meter available on Prepaid portal, but guessing it’s about the same deal.

CommunityMember

Devious I have found you cannot depend on what a router says if you do any LAN upload/download as the router will count this as traffic but Comcast does not as it only counts WAN traffic.

I believe this depends on the router. Some routers just count traffic (and that would include LAN to LAN traffic), and some are capable of counting traffic only on specific interfaces (or at least categories of interfaces (WAN, LAN, WLAN)).

smilingbob

CommunityMember Yeah, my Asus router is pretty old now but it supports Fresh Tomato firmware - which is why I’ll use it until it breaks. I posted the WAN meter above, but it is pretty detailed on logging info to the attached USB drive. I could also setup complete IP traffic monitoring but don’t really see the need at this point. Unfortunately, there is only one WiFi6 router available to flash for this firmware, and probably won’t be any other newer units. FT turns your consumer router into more of an enterprise solution if you have need of all the extra functionality.

Devious

CommunityMember I believe this depends on the router. Some routers just count traffic (and that would include LAN to LAN traffic), and some are capable of counting traffic only on specific interfaces (or at least categories of interfaces (WAN, LAN, WLAN)).

My Asus router has where I can count LAN, WAN and even individual apps usage.
I was referring to the complete usage meter like bobs photo that say WAN monthly.
I don’t use cheap junk routers that only count WAN traffic.

Donut417

So an update. We switched over. It was the most painless experience I have ever had with this company. They canceled the post paid service, and set us up with the NOW internet and the gateway. Got the gateway in bridge mode, it was right on the front page after logging in. My mom choose to put this under my name, so I was able to use my current Comcast account and everything. Very easy.

What told I can start and stop service when ever I needed. I also would never have to return the gateway. To be honest this is a downgrade in service, but we had 100/20 last year or the year before, so not really an issue.