Saturday, January 19, 2008

Comcast Pivot Cell Phone Service

A few months ago I noticed that Comcast was offering cell phone service called Pivot (partnered with Sprint). A nice feature was the ability to just add the service to our existing Comcast bill. Our old cell phone plan was through Verizon Wireless which at the time did not offer the all in one bill option so we switched our home phone service to Comcast Digital voice a year or so ago, further consolidating our bills.

So last year when our contract was up with Verizon we went into our local Sprint store to sign up with the Comcast Pivot Service. With Verizon we were paying around $85/month for two phones. The family plan that Pivot was offering at the time was $59/month. So it was pretty much a no-brainer for us to sign up for the service. You can see the pricing for the plans using the link below.

http://www.comcast.com/corporate/wireless/plans.html

We did have to buy new cell phones. They had a pretty good selection on the phones. We ended up getting the Sanyo Katana II. I think this is a $90 phone but with rebates and promotions we ended up paying just $30 for both phones. We had a little problem with the rebate but a quick phone call to Sprint resolved that.

The service so far has been really good. There used to be a few areas near us where calls would drop but we haven't noticed this with the Sprint Network. The only issue we have had is with billing. The first couple bills we received had an additional charge for equipment protection and we were also being charged for text messages. For both bills I called Comcast and the charges were taken off and I was told they won't be on my next bill, but they were. I am hoping that it gets resolved when my next bill comes.

Update 2/5/2008:
3rd bill with Comcast Pivot andd still getting random additional charges. Unfortunately nobody I have spoken to at Comcast can tell me why these charges keep appearing. Getting a little frustrated.

Pivot also offers a really cool multimedia plan which we did not sign up for. Some of the features included in the mutimedia plan are:

  • Access to Comcast Email on your phone
  • Radio Channels
  • Internet Access
  • GPS Driving Directions

At some point in the future we will probably upgrade to the multimedia plan. The cost for upgrading would cost is an additional $40/month which is not really worth it for us right now. Although email access and GPS directions are pretty intriguing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

thanks for this...i'm also considering switching as I do have comcast for internet and voice. I'd like to have one bill, etc. But I am also getting annoyed at the random tacked on charges and having to go through having them removed. I've heard that if you "tweet" a comcast complaint, they get right on it. ...you might try that?
anyway, cheers...