With Xfinity Mobile, the nation’s largest cable provider is finally ready to get into the wireless game.
Comcast boasts a «polished» unboxing experience for your new Xfinity iPhone.
The wireless world is rife with competition, with carriers eliminating taxes or throwing in free access to HBO — all in a bid to get your business.
Perfect timing for Comcast to jump into the fray, right?
The nation’s largest cable provider on Thursday shared details of Xfinity Mobile , including pricing and the kinds of devices available to customers. It plans to launch the service, which will run on Verizon ‘s network as part of a reseller agreement, by the middle of the year.
Comcast isn’t looking to pick a fight with the big four carriers — the Philadelphia-based company acknowledges that it can’t compete with their splashy national campaigns. Instead, it will target existing Xfinity internet and video customers in its territory, so chances are you won’t even hear about this service unless you live in an area where Comcast is available.
Comcast is the latest to expand into a new service in the bid to be all things to the customer. It’s a trend you’ve seen with telecom provider AT&T bulk up its video offering with DirecTV, or Verizon getting into the media business via AOL and Yahoo. And while Comcast doesn’t see itself as a direct competitor to wireless providers, Xfinity Mobile gives certain consumers another potentially cheaper alternative. It’s also a chance for Comcast to show that maybe cable companies don’t always deserve that bad reputation.
If you’re an Xfinity X1 video customer, the price of each unlimited data line is $45, and for anyone else, $65 ( Comcast internet customers, for instance). The intent is to get existing customers — a base of nearly 29 million — to tack on another service, making it harder for them to leave.
«Our goal is to improve loyalty and drive customer growth,» Greg Butz, president of Comcast Mobile, said in an interview on Wednesday.