Tello vs. Xfinity Mobile

Alright, let’s take a look at the cell phone plans from Tello and Xfinity Mobile that cost $65 a month or less.

Your eyes do not deceive you–it costs $5 more for 3GB of data from Xfinity than it does for unlimited data from Tello. If you ever thought about getting a non-unlimited data plan from Xfinity, just don’t. Seriously. Xfinity Mobile’s by-the-gig data options easily make the list of worst cell phone plans. Just ignore them and focus on the Tello plans for now.

Tello’s non-unlimited data plans will beat just about anybody’s prices. Think of it this way: Would you rather pay $19 a month for 10GB of data with Tello, or $30 a month for 3GB of data with Xfinity Mobile? My vote goes for the first option.

Before you jump on one of Tello’s non-unlimited plans, make sure to check your data usage. If you use more than 10 GB a month, you’d be better off going with Tello’s unlimited plan, Xfinity Mobile’s unlimited plan with the family plan discount, or an unlimited plan elsewhere. But if you really only use a few gigs of internet data every month, you can get a super affordable plan from Tello.

Tello is a no-frills cell phone carrier, but one perk you do get is free international calling to landlines in over 60 countries, including Canada and Mexico. If you have chatty loved ones abroad, Tello makes perfect sense.

This is where Xfinity Mobile really shines over Tello. On its own, Xfinity’s Unlimited Intro Data plan costs $45 a month, but when you bundle two or more lines into a family plan, the price goes down to $30 a month for one line on the unlimited plan. At that price, Xfinity’s unlimited plan costs basically the same as Tello’s. But with Xfinity's plan, you get unlimited mobile hotspot data at 3G speeds.

It’s a similar discount with Xfinity’s Unlimited Plus Data plan, which drops from $55 a month to $40 a month (per line) when bundled with a family plan. The Plus plan comes with a higher data cap (30GB vs. 20GB) and includes HD wireless streaming.

It’d certainly be cool if discounts stacked when you add more lines, so your family plan would get cheaper with larger plans, but the discount maxes out at $15 a month.

Prepaid carriers don’t operate their own wireless networks, instead, they rent network space from the big networks like T-Mobile and Verizon. In this case, Tello rents the T-Mobile 5G network, and Xfinity rents from Verizon’s 5G network. Verizon offers the most overall coverage in the country, but that fact only matters if you actually get coverage where you live.

You can find out what kind of coverage to expect in your neck of the woods by entering your zip code below. The more purple you see in your city, the better the coverage with that network.

From our research and testing, T-Mobile’s network provides faster speeds (54.1Mbps) on average than Verizon (30.2Mbps). Your data speeds depend on location as well, but you can expect to land somewhere near these average speeds. We recommend asking some friends or neighbors who use T-Mobile or Verizon how their experiences have been.

The drawback of budget prepaid carriers like Tello and Xfinity is that your internet speed might slow down sometimes. When lots of people are using the wireless network simultaneously, the big networks prioritize their direct customers.

Picture this: You're a Tello user. Your friend uses T-Mobile. You both leave a packed baseball stadium, and, frustratingly, your Uber app can't connect to the internet. Your friend, on the other hand, has no trouble connecting with the app and getting a ride. The difference? Your friend’s network request took priority on the network over yours. You had to deal with data throttling. Hopefully you won’t encounter this often with either carrier, it can be quite annoying when it happens.

Choosing between Tello and Xfinity boils down to whether you plan on getting a family plan. Assuming you can get at least two lines together, you can get Xfinity’s unlimited plan to be right around the same price as Tello’s unlimited plan. At that point, it’s a matter of preference between Verizon and T-Mobile’s networks. Whatever you do, don’t go for an individual Xfinity plan, that’s just a bad deal.

• Individual data plans: Tello offers a bunch of cell phone plans (including non-unlimited options) for affordable prices, but Xfinity’s individual plans are all pretty bad deals.
• Family plans: Xfinity Mobile offers family plan discounts on its two unlimited plans. We wouldn’t recommend Xfinity Mobile unless you get the family plan discount.
• Coverage: Tello uses T-Mobile’s network, and Xfinity uses Verizon’s network. The quality of coverage you get mostly depends on where you live, although Verizon’s network (which Xfinity uses) technically has the best overall coverage.
• Performance: On average, Tello customers will experience faster data on T-Mobile’s network. Xfinity customers can also expect solid speeds on Verizon’s network, although not as fast on average compared to T-Mobile.

This review relies on years of tracking Tello and Xfinity’'s plans, prices, and performance. We've used the latest plan information from both companies, factored in customer feedback, conducted hands-on testing, and used our data from more than 100,000 customers to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each carrier.