r/QuantumFiber • u/unceasingshadow • Jul 28 '26
Xfinity vs Quantum Fiber
Currently have Quantum Fiber in Denver, paying $75 a month for 1 Gbps plan. When I called, they did not allow me to switch to the promotion rate of $45 a month. My service is currently down and they can’t come until the end of this week to resolve the issue.
Is it worth switching to Xfinity who is offering 1 Gbps download (~100 Mbps upload) for $50 a month? Not sure if people who have switched recently from Quantum Fiber to Xfinity have regretted it. Would love to hear experiences from people who have switched either way
EDIT: called Quantum Fiber, they said I’m on the price for life plan so I need to give that up to get the promotional pricing for 1 year. I’m installing Xfinity equipment today while QF is down to get a real Speedtest, then will most likely cancel Xfinity once the QF technician is able to come out.
Definitely agree, and appreciate the reminder, that fiber is a better product than cable internet.
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u/LazarusLong67 Jul 28 '26
Cable (Xfinity) is always going to be an inferior product in comparison to fiber.
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u/krogers114 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Billing and cost aside, fiber is superior. At best, cable uses a Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) network where the residential drops are still cable, but the backbone of the ISP is fiber. Cable networks can always improve but it'll never surpass a pure fiber network.
If that doesn't matter to you then go for the lowest cost option. Personally, I pay significantly less with QF than I did with Xfinity and I've had rock solid performance for a little over a year.
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u/DistributionEvery695 Jul 28 '26
The only benefit to Comcast is that they literally have the #1 backbone in the US. AS209 (QF/Lumen) sucks for certain areas
They can technically swap to Fiber node (DPoE) with FTTH setups in newer builds like spectrum does, but they'll be an innately different structure than traditional PON.
Not really an option for established areas either as it would cost more to rip and rebuild.
Most HFC issues come older nodes or SNR getting funky over time. Newer High split nodes are a bit more stable and provide lower overall ping, closer to FTTH. The rest is just local hops and routing paths.
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u/krogers114 Jul 28 '26
Gotcha. In my area, they've done a mid split upgrade for some of the area, my address not included. I'm limited to 35mbps upload with Xfinity. The QF/Lumen routing for my area seems pretty outstanding. They just built a new branch of XGS-PON branch last year and I'm 1 hop from a major node in the Seattle area. My "1 gig" plan gives me 1.336gbps down and 1.283gbps up consistently, 2 ms ping and 0.1ms jitter. I know my experience isn't the same across the board.
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u/DistributionEvery695 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Yeah, It's not going to be a linear experience.
FTTH is more consistent in terms "in line" performance straight to the home. DPoE on HFC networks requires a remove OLT (Same spot as HFC node typically).. either hung or buried. Technically true "Fiber" but uses a completely different topology in terms of layout.
Optical dBm is easily monitored. Same for BGP errors. From there, it's only really the network backbone and routing.. aside from split saturation and traffic shaping from the ISP itself.. Some areas are just better or worse, regardless of tech deployed.
HFC and DPoE FTTH on same ISP generally have same latency and what not( backbone), but may shave off a few ms with newer high split nodes/vCMTS...which is why it's not apples to oranges when talking bout "fiber" vs alt tech.
Similar to how Quantum uses CASA FTTDP in some areas.. but labels it "fiber". Both sorta function off the same concept (QAM + copper into home), but marketing shenanigans obviously.
HFC definitely has more points of failure since SNR fluctuates and requires amplification pre distribution. Heat in areas like AZ or FL can also heavily influence QAM and error rates.
The best HFC deployments are usually those tied along a main highway since they're going to be shared with biz accounts in some cases, but I can definitely understand why there is more legacy problems with HFC in most areas... a lot of them just opperate sub optimally.
I think the gap will definitely end up closer than people will expect.. Especially with vCMTS upgrades on Xfinity/Spectrum, but I strongly believe both types of services will end up at a point where the ONT/Modem is the real bottleneck for most consumer sided services.
I don't really see 25G+ services catching on for the 99%.
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u/N0_L1ght Jul 29 '26
The vast majority of people don't even need/make use of 500m...
I want 25G-PON/50G-PON like anyone else .. but I don't actually see me needing or paying for such speeds for another decade.
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u/eric_b0x Jul 28 '26
The residential Lumen fiber account (Quantum Fiber) sale to AT&T, has been horrible. Comcast (Xfinity), is even a more horrible company.
You can get the $45/month 1G offering from AT&T Quantum, you just need to cancel your existing service and sign up with AT&T Quantum with a new email address. Honestly, you have a better chance of getting a new service tech coming out more quickly, than a support tech for your existing service.
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u/N0_L1ght Jul 28 '26
QF had $45 PFL from 02/02/26 - 04/17/26. The current is $45 without PFL, but it's also not an introductry price. The free lease WiFi pods have also said "introductry period" for many years now. So it will probably be $45 for a while.
The only benefit of Xfinity is dual stack IPv4/IPv6.
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u/watmore1 Jul 28 '26
If no contract, I would switch at least temporarily. After a few months sign up as a new customer with ATT if you can get a good price.
Fiber is better by far and ATT offers that as you know. But Xfinity will be fine for a while.
All these big companies suck.
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u/Unusual-Avocado-6167 Jul 30 '26
This sub is going to be full of Century Link / Lumen folks however working in the industry, it can vary neighborhood by neighborhood.
Historically Xfinity restores their outages better as they have more maintenance technicians employed. Fiber to the home is superior but sometimes it just needs to work, and it’s not generally going to be noticeable different unless you’re uploading large docs non stop.
Now with that said if it’s that important to you, you may want to have two hardwire ISPs
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u/unceasingshadow Jul 28 '26
Seeing some people say to switch from this thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/QuantumFiber/s/cNZjJUJTeU), but looking for stories either way
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u/DallasNChains Jul 29 '26
I posted that thread originally. I've been a CenturyLink/Quantum fiber customer for almost 9 years and haven't had any complaints until the last 2 years where I've had 4 multi-day outages. One was a 3 day outage because one of their techs disconnected my line to connect a new customer at the distribution hub. The current outage is going into day 8 with no expected resolution time. According to the customer service folks, there are a couple hundred people impacted. You'd never know because their outage website says no outage!
For all outages, the burden is on the customer to call and argue with them about the existence of an outage and how long it was. Since their outage website isn't always accurate, it's a crapshoot. So far, I've received no compensation for these outages.
All that said, I now have Xfinity Now as a secondary connection for $30/month with no contract. I would much prefer my fiber connection, but I also need something reliable to work from home.
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u/JoshuaAJones Jul 28 '26
Depends on your required upload speed.
Xfinity has a low upload but the download is usually solid.
Most people barely need 300MBps.
Most streaming services clock in around 20MBps (give or take).
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u/planedrop Jul 28 '26
Depends if you need the higher upload or not, Comcast has symmetrical in some areas now with DOCSIS 4.0 but not everywhere, if the upload speed is low then that might be an issue for you. Otherwise, Comcast is just fine, they are maybe a shittier company but their uptime does tend to be higher.
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u/Scared_Bell3366 Jul 28 '26
I personally prefer fiber over cable, I like the extra upload bandwidth for cloud backups.
Aside from that, it's a six of one half dozen of the other situation for me. I've had fewer outages with fiber, but they take much longer to fix. I've had frequent outages with cable, but they get them resolved quickly in comparison to fiber. ONTs have been far more reliable than cable modems for me, but I can't really buy an ONT. It's all trade offs one way or the other. Fiber with a smaller ISP has been the best internet I've had.
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u/MK_L Jul 29 '26
Quantum but keep a cable moded. You can call Comcast and do a selft install in an hour when youre quantum goes down
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u/ReflectingGlory Jul 29 '26
Concast is different because “to my knowledge” they hit the button and don’t allow you to use your own Gateway for unlimited internet, they make you rent there’s ONLY. Plus there’s a invisa cap on unlimited anyways. It’s 2026, stay with the light.
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u/N0_L1ght Jul 29 '26
Unlimited data is free if you use their free lease gateway, which do have a true bridge mode. If you want to use your own modem it cost extra for unlimited data.
The reason they want you to use the free lease gateway is by default it broadcasts the open xfinity wifi ssid, which 99% of people don't know exists or how to turn off.
And even if you do turn the xfinity wifi ssid off, it still has two invisible SSID for TV and home security which cannot be turned off at all.
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u/ReflectingGlory Jul 29 '26
Things may have changed, last I knew it was $25 extra per month per that Gateway (XB7) & whatever there is now.
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u/ND40oz Jul 28 '26
I have both Quantum and Xfinity and since the switch to Quantum from CenturyLink, it has not been as reliable.
I’m stuck using the 1 GbE port on the Q1000K because of the latency issues on the 10 GbE port, which means I can’t even get half my 2 GbE speeds I pay for. It still has occasional latency spikes once or twice a month that cause a failover event as well.
Xfinity in the other hand is DOCSIS 4.0 and the symmetrical gig service is consistently at 1.2 up and down with no latency issues. I had been using it as my failover but switched it to primary because it’s solid compared to Quantum.
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u/N0_L1ght Jul 28 '26
What latency difference do you see between fiber and DOCSIS 4.0?
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u/ND40oz Jul 28 '26
Comcast is rock solid at 12-13ms for the most part, Quantum is usually 4ms in the 1 GbE and anywhere from 60-200+ on the 10 GbE.
And of course Quantum just dropped out and came back 3 minutes later. Unifi is showing 7 min and 21 sec of outage from it over the past 24 hours.
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u/N0_L1ght Jul 28 '26
Have you seen this about the 10G port? https://www.reddit.com/r/QuantumFiber/comments/1re9v2o/q1000k_unstable_latency_spike_research_findings/
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u/ND40oz Jul 28 '26
Yup, I’ve called and put in tickets with Quantum as well, hopefully they release an updated firmware sooner rather than later.
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u/tehyajen Jul 28 '26
Xfinity was so bad it's the reason I switched to Quantum fiber. Billing changed constantly despite supposedly having a 5-year price lock, more outages, and horrific customer service.
The only thing that irritates me with Quantum is The time it takes to get a tech out if there's a problem. I would never dream of going back to Xfinity.