Voiceline Text Messaging Retirement Questions

THE KEEP TRYING ain't worked! 

Emails included the information required to access the account to answer questions! I've actually supplied that 'TWICE'! If the Xfinity Store were around the corner wouldn't be an issue! 35 miles each way I don't believe so.

The amazing thing is at one time we had a very efficient 'CUSTOMER SERVICE' Center in town. They were VERY efficient! VERY!!! The only service center now is 20+ mile drive., a 9.5 X 16 lobby that customarily has waiting line 5+ deep! There ain't many 'HAPPY FACES'

When we had our service center it wasn't unusual to see a customer carry the CSRs candy, cookies etc. I don't recall ever seeing a 'shouter' - the newer center - seen a couple times. 

We're in a 'NO DATA LIMIT'  service area. I went in to return a CableCARD and out of curiosity (a test) I asked about DATA - I was told 1TB but to ignore it because they would likely allow with a couple warnings BEFORE TAKING ACTION The CSR actually mentioned 'FACT'. I used for 13 months 1.4TB - 1.7TB, OF COURSE no warnings! 

Will today be a different experience? I wonder!

KEEP TRYING?

I don't often use the 'on line' CHAT options BUT today I figured 'WHY NOT'! VOICE AGENT/CSR INSISTED THAT THE TEXT FEATURE IS NOT GOING AWAY  -NOT 'once' or 'twice' BUT several times!!!

Still 'no luck' by just waiting. Reached out the Office of TK@eCares. A response that hinted my situation wasn't understood!  I responded to that reply 2 times with 0 response. Tried a CHAT to get TK @ eCares office to respond. CHAT CSR had no idea who TK is! I was directed to TK eCares by an xfinity Store CSR.

I provided the CHAT rep the complete response from the office of TK - still implied 'no knowledge' of 

Left the CHAT with a comment please ask someone to respond from office of TK!  We'll see!

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@ArdentownDE wrote:

I am very upset that Xfinity is "retiring" the text service in order to push their mobile phone offering.  As a visually impaired person, text messaging is very important.  I am now going to look for ways to cut my Comcast services and billing since Comcast has not indicated that they will reduce their charges as they reduce vital services.  I will investigate Verizon FIOS.  I used to be a loyal Comcast customer until this notice and the lack of ways to complain about it plus no official responses to this forum topic.

 

I'll be very honest , I don't believe that's actually their intent!

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I am very upset that Xfinity is "retiring" the text service in order to push their mobile phone offering.  As a visually impaired person, text messaging is very important.  I am now going to look for ways to cut my Comcast services and billing since Comcast has not indicated that they will reduce their charges as they reduce vital services.  I will investigate Verizon FIOS.  I used to be a loyal Comcast customer until this notice and the lack of ways to complain about it plus no official responses to this forum topic.

Comcast did not provide a reason for eliminating this service.  As a retired computer software executive from a FORTUNE 50 company, the cost of maintaining an existing service is not all that high.  Text messaging is a limited function service, the computer code already exists and likely no enhancements are needed.  Why not just keep it for minimal new costs and keep their customers happy?  Given their big marketing push for Xfinity Mobile, that is the only rationale that I can come up with.

One of the things I find a little ironic about all of this is that the latest round of advertising from Comcast/Xfinity is focused heavily on accessability for their services, and yet here they are removing an accessability feature from one of their services.

I have found a replacement for the texting feature from Comcast. It is "Google Voice".

See:

https://thedroidguy.com/send-receive-text-messages-without-phone-plan-sim-card-1063532

Also:

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=Awr9NVdRGD1eOQIAxjg0nIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTBncGdyMzQ0BHNlYwNzZWFyY2gEdnRpZAM-;_ylc=X1MDMTM1MTE5NTcwMARfcgMyBGFjdG4DY2xrBGNzcmNwdmlkAzhKSDNuekV3TGpKd1Z1VmhYaDhlTWdWNE1qWXdNUUFBQUFDOFZFYTkEZnIDeWhzLWRjb2xhLTAwMQRmcjIDc2EtZ3AEZ3ByaWQDBG5fcnNsdAM2MARuX3N1Z2cDMARvcmlnaW4DdmlkZW8uc2VhcmNoLnlhaG9vLmNvbQRwb3MDMARwcXN0cgMEcHFzdHJsAwRxc3RybAM0OARxdWVyeQN0ZXh0JTIwd2l0aCUyMGdvb2dsZSUyMHZvaWNlJTIwZnJvbSUyMGRlc2slMjB0b3AEdF9zdG1wAzE1ODEwNjI0MDc-?p=text+with+google+voice+from+desk+top&ei=UTF-8&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asa&fr=yhs-dcola-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=dcola#id=1&vid=f353f1fbaf4b741bfeeb47bfa97f5d25&action=view

Has comcast looked into parterning with a service that provides texting for existing phone numbers and offering that service to customers that want it at a discounted rate. 

Here is one example: https://www.zipwhip.com/pricing/ 

https://frontiertexting.com/residential

Get a google voice account. You can text right from your computer OR cell phone.  I use it at work with one supervisor who hates email but loves to text (crazy, but you know millenials). If you don't use it to make phone calls, it don't cost you a penny.

voice.google.com

I also looked at Google Voice. It will be my choice when the Xfinity texting goes away.

Google Voice 'might' be a very reasonable solution/option for some but when you've a 304 area code that GV doesn't offer porting and an exchange that won't port to XM it gets much more complicated.  I've sorted mine I believe working with the 'Accesibilty Group'. Wasn't an inexpensive solution BUT best that could be had. Having a number for 35+ years and wanting to maintain that was important!

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@ComcastBecker wrote:

Hi All -

 

First off, let me say that I'm sorry to see this feature go away as well.  Although I wasn't a heavy user of the feature myself, it definitely did come in handy at times!  I remember using it when I went out of the country... as long as I was connected to WiFi, I could still text message all I wanted. 🙂  

 

Xfinity Text Messaging was released at a time that unlimited text messaging was not as popular as it is now with most cell phone plans.  Since its release, we've seen usage drop dramatically as people moved to cell phone text messaging and other options like Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, and numerous other platforms.

 

The service that Xfinity Text Messaging uses is no longer going to be supported by our vendor and there was no similar service which we could integrate with our platform.  We we had to make the decision around developing a completely new solution or simply retiring the service.  Because of the relatively low utilization of the service (a fraction of a percent of our customer base), we had to make the tough decision to retire it.

 

I do hope that those who still need a similar service are able to transition to something else that works well for them - while I can't recommend any specifically, other users in this thread have mentioned options that might work well.

 

Again, our sincere apologies to those who will miss the feature.  It was definitely a unique option to have with a landline phone service! 

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I find it really hard to believe that a Multi-Billion dollar mass communications congolmerate like NBC Universal/Xfinity (with all the resources at it's disposal) cannot locate a vendor to support the existing platform. In fact, there was a time for many months that the existing platform had issues which rendered the service unusable on PC for many customers. The "vendor" should've been replaced long ago.