Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile Cuts Rates for Subscribers With 2 or 3 Lines

Comcast introduced a “new” set of unlimited plans for its Xfinity Mobile wireless service this week that is more of a maintenance release.

They give two- and three-line subscribers a decent break on rates but offer no discount for single- or four-line customers—and continue to enforce fine-print limits.

The company’s press release(Opens in a new window) for the service it runs on Verizon’s network highlights the best-case scenario for savings against the cheapest unlimited-data subscriptions sold at the big three carriers: two lines, which at Xfinity Mobile now cost $60 a month versus $80 on T-Mobile’s Base Essentials , $110 on Verizon’s new Welcome Unlimited, and $120 on AT&T’s Unlimited Starter.

Under Xfinity Mobile’s previous rates(Opens in a new window), those two lines would have cost $80 a month. Three-line subscribers get less of a break, paying $90 instead of $100 under the old rates. Single- and four-line customers, meanwhile, pay the same as before: $45 and $120, respectively.

The biggest fine-print restriction, hidden behind a “Pricing & Other Info” link on Xfinity’s compare-plans page(Opens in a new window) and also noted on its broadband-disclosures page(Opens in a new window), also hasn’t changed: After 20GB of data in a month, your speeds get knocked all the way down to 1.5Mbps downloads and 600kbps uploads. Xfinity Mobile’s unlimited rate further limits mobile-hotspot use to 600kbps.

Note that the T-Mobile and Verizon plans held up by Comcast for comparison contain their own fine-print gotchas. Base Essentials also cuts back speeds to 1.5Mbps after the first 20GB and limits mobile-hotspot use to 600kbps(Opens in a new window), a speed that T-Mobile misleadingly touts as “3G”; Welcome Unlimited does not allow mobile hotspot use at all.

Xfinity Mobile’s By the Gig metered-data option, with tiers at $15 for 1GB, $30 for 3GB and $60 for 10GB, includes full-speed hotspot use but gets expensive quickly. Each gigabyte of data after 10GB costs $15 extra.

As ever, saving money on wireless service usually requires some compromise somewhere. And to date, Xfinity Mobile’s lower rates and its combination of Verizon’s network with Comcast’s own network of Wi-Fi hotspots seem to work for many customers—enough of whom endorsed Xfinity Mobile in PCMag’s latest Readers’ Choice awards for it to win a score of 8.3 out of 10.