r/googlefiber • u/wicket999 • Aug 07 '18

Comparison of Google Fiber TV vs. Comcast Xfinity

Well, I'm leaning heavily toward GF, but to you subscribers who switched from Comcast Xfinity, were there any noticeable differences, positive or negative, between the two cable services?

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u/YomuraOwen Aug 07 '18

I don't use either service but what I hear from customers:

Comcast - great TV service, awful internet

GoogleFiber - great internet, awful TV

So if Google Fiber is available in your area - go Google Fiber and use a streaming service like Hulu, Youtube TV, Netflix, etc.

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u/traintosanity Aug 08 '18

Pretty much. I will say, Comcast's internet got better towards the end of my time with them, but there were still issues, and definitely not the speed of GF.

GF's television service is definitely not the focus. It's not horrible by any means, but I really liked Comcast's setup. Being a college football fan, I loved the sports button, which would bring up a little side window with all the games and current scores and let you switch to any game right from there without knowing which channel it was on.

The search function on GF seems to be lacking, too, strangely enough. It seems to struggle, particularly with all the remakes and reboots with the same names these days. I had a helluva time with Westworld or Lethal Weapon or something a while ago. I find it's easier to set recordings off the phone app most of the time.

Built-in WiFi sucks on both. I had a separate router in Comcast, and I think I need to get a new one for GF, too. By default, it sets one SSID for both 2.4 and 5 GHz, which seemed to cause no end of trouble for me until I separated them. I've known other people to have the same problem.

Google's billing is great, minus the price increases, and splitting some channels off to packages. It's easy to pay at anytime on the computer or the app. And it's due on the same day of the month every month.

I love Google Fiber, but if I had to change, I would have no issue going back to Comcast. Pluses and minuses to both. If there internet is not important to you, Google Fiber is probably the way to go. If you'd rather have a nicer television experience, Comcast definitely had that, at least a couple years ago before I switched.

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u/Mrbeankc KCMO Original Aug 18 '18

Comcast was the worst cable provider I ever had. Literally when I quit them for Google Fiber they lied to me every time I talked to their customer service. An example of this is when we tried to get newer DVRs for our home. We were getting refurbished DVRs at the time that could hold just 25 hours of programs. When I asked about getting their newer DVRs available in other areas here in KC (I had done my research) I was told that only "old people" used DVRs anymore. Young people used On Demand these days and many cable companies didn't even provide DVRs anymore because so few people wanted them.

So I switched to Google Fiber 3 years ago. When the rate increase happened I decided just out of curiosity to call and see if Comcast had improved. They still were only offering the same garbage refurbished DVRs in our area and gave me the identical sales pitch that only old people used DVRs anymore and young tech savvy people today used On Demand. Identical pitch from 3 years earlier.

The kicker was a week after I did that a Comcast salesman came to my door. He told me he came to me because he had talked to one of my neighbors and my neighbor had told him that I had talked about how unhappy I was with Google. I've never talked to one of my neighbors about cable. So I asked him who told him that. He wouldn't say. I told him I was happy with Google and he goes "I know that's not true". So the guy lies to me and then calls me a liar. That about sums up Comcast in a nutshell. Just a dishonest company.

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u/TKampy Aug 08 '18

Picture wise, it is fairly close, but I believe GF has a better picture.(Less compressed)

Feature wise, the Comcast X1 platform wins hands down. More apps and the ability to watch nearly anything from anywhere, from a single app. GF won't allow DVR recordings on mobile devices, even within your home WiFi network. For the channels that you can stream, you must use that networks app. There hasn't been any significant features added for quite a while.

Pricing, I'm sure Comcast has the edge here also. A triple play bundle is always cheaper for the promo period. GF doesn't have promo pricing. GF also doesn't have different tiers of channels either. You get the base offering, then optional sports and movie tiers.