A new internet company came through my neighborhood offering fiber 1 gig up AND down to my home (not FiOS). Since I work from home often, upload speeds are more important to me than down. Since Comcast can only offer 20 mbps upstream speeds, this new service provider is much more preferred.
So I went to my Xfinty store and asked if I were to downgrade my service to ONLY TV, would my X1 DVR box still function withOUT the Xfinity supplied modem? He said yes, so I started the process to change providers.
I (gladly) returned my X1 modem, and terminated both phone and internet from Comcast. I moved my phone to Vonage and my internet to this new fiber provider. Both my internet and phone work just fine without Comcast, but my TV service is spotty. My X1 DVR box seems to randomly BOOT, sometimes stuck in a loop (seeing "boot - stsi - pst" where the time would be). It eventually comes back online, but could take many, many reboots. (The smaller non-X1 boxes from Comcast continue to work fine.)
Other than removing the X1 modem and one split, no wiring was changed in my house.
Suspecting that the original Xfinity employee I asked was wrong, and my X1 DVR does NEED an $11 X1 modem rental, I went back to the store. Just in case, I brought my X1 DVR box to swap out with a new one in the event it was malfunctioning.
This new Xfinity employee said yes, I do need Xfinity Internet for the X1 DVR to funtion properly. Thing is, I don't WANT Xfinity Internet. So I asked if I could get an older Motorola "blue guide" box. He said those are no longer available at this location, and once I move to the X1 platform, I can't go back.
I brought the new X1 DVR box home and installed it. It seems to work, but did take a few reboots to come online. I'm just waiting to see if it continues to work, as this problem has been random.
I don't care about the X1 platform. I just want TV service with On Demand and a DVR. Is this true? Do I NEED to subscribe to Xfinity Internet AND pay their $11 modem rental fee just to get TV now? Can I go back to the older platform (non-X1)?
If this is the case, that's messed up. I may just downgrade yet again and get the smaller $4.99 boxes, ditch the DVR service, and maybe subscribe to YouTube TV.
Comcast is really making it desirable to "cut the cord."
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