Xfinity Increases Internet Pricing (2024)

Starting in January 2024, Xfinity (Comcast) will be raising their prices again. The 200 Mbps internet plan that I use will be increasing by 24%. Right now, I'm paying $62 per month, and I own the modem and router. If you have Xfinity for cable, phone, or internet, you can expect a similar increase for the services that you use. This has become an annual occurrence with Xfinity. They sent me an email a few weeks ago that said they were giving me a $5 discount for using autopay with a credit card. You can get a $10 discount if you use a bank account instead of a credit card. But I figure the fewer companies that have direct access to my bank account the better. Especially Xfinity who was hacked again in October 2023.

Xfinity is offering a free subscription to Peacock Premium if you have Platinum status. Normally that would cost $5.99 per month. I signed up for the offer because I'm basically paying for it anyway. With the $5 autopay discount my new monthly bill is $71 per month. That is too much for 200 Mbps with a 1.2 TB data cap and my own equipment. The only option to reduce my monthly bill is to apply for the Affordable Connectivity Program. This is a government program for eligible families to receive a benefit of up to $30 per month applied to the cost of their internet service.  To qualify the household income needs to be at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines. For a 1-person household, the limit is $30,120. For a 2-person household, the limit is $40,880. I just found out that the program will stop accepting new applications and enrollments on February 7, 2024. Funding is expected to last through April 2024, running out completely in May, barring further Congressional appropriations. If the program ends, nearly 23 million households across the country are at risk of losing internet access.

On December 21st, Xfinity sent me an email saying that I had used 75% of my data for the month. Anyone without unlimited data has a data usage cap of 1.2TB (1200 GB). If you exceed the limit, Xfinity will bill you $10 for every 50GB over the limit. Normally, I don't come close to exceeding the limit. I did download a 90GB game on the Xbox, but that shouldn't have caused the data warning. We do stream a lot of movies on the Amazon Fire TV device, so I started to look at that for clues. In the settings menu under "Data Usage Monitoring" you can find "Monthly Top Data Usage". 

The top two data hogs were the FireTV player and the FireTV system. Data usage was 10x the previous month's data usage while other apps were in a normal range. I recently noticed that the FireTV device was auto playing video in the featured contest section on the home screen. Since the FireTV device is on whenever the TV is on, I thought that this had to be what was causing all of the data usage. In the settings menu under "Featured Content" you can turn off video and audio autoplay. This puts a still image in the featured content area instead of streaming video. The change should help lower the amount of data used by the FireTV player.

Amana ARB2517CSL Refrigerator Repair

I have an Amana 25 cubic foot refrigerator with a bottom drawer freezer that was manufactured in 2002. Refrigerators manufactured today are only expected to last 10-12 years. As you can see from the photo, this one is in very good condition. About ten years ago, shortly after I moved into the home, the refrigerator stopped working. Back then, I replaced the relay overload start device attached to the compressor to get it working again. A couple of weeks ago, it started having problems cooling. It was making a buzzing sound followed by a click every few minutes. This usually indicates that the start relay has failed.

I went online to order the part but found out that the original part number (W67002783) was no longer available. There were a few places that still had it, but the cost was as high as $50. The replacement part number (W10613606) was only $12 with free shipping, so I ordered one from Amazon. When the new replacement part arrived, it was an exact fit, except the capacitor was smaller in size. I installed it and the compressor wouldn't start. I then attached the old capacitor to the new relay and that worked. But, 24 hours later, it was making the buzzing clicking noise again.

I went online again and found several YouTube videos that explained how the relay device worked and how to test it. Continuity on the compressor was good and it was cooling the fridge when it did run. The relay has a 3-pin configuration to match the compressor. I checked the continuity on the relay socket and the top pin failed when doing a test to the power socket. When I checked the old relay, the connection was good. So, I attached the old relay with the new capacitor and the compressor started right up. After 24 hours, it started making the buzzing clicking noise again. This time, I noticed that the compressor was much warmer than it should be.

The cooling coils are on the bottom of this model. I routinely vacuum the front grill when cleaning the kitchen floor. But maybe that wasn't enough. I took the plastic grill off and saw that dust had collected on the cooling coils. I fashioned an old toothbrush to the end of a thin nylon rod and attached a 3-foot x 1/2" diameter hose to a vacuum attachment, then I spent about an hour doing a deep cleaning on the coils. It took some time to get all of the dust removed because there isn't much space under there. I didn't want to use compressed air because dust would have gone everywhere. By now, the compressor had cooled down and the refrigerator and relay had reset. I turned on the power and the compressor started up. After 24 hours, the compressor was much cooler than before the coil cleaning. 

There are many things that can go wrong with a kitchen appliance. But if you have cooling coils under your fridge, they need an annual deep cleaning. It can cost as much $2000 to replace a 25 cubic foot refrigerator. I would most likely have to get a less expensive 21 cubic foot unit as a replacement. None of the common brands that I researched had very good reviews for quality and reliability. I didn't want to spend $1200 for something that isn't as good as what I had. The one thing I learned was that the more features a unit has, the more things there are to fail. I was surprised how much better the fridge runs after the cleaning. Hopefully it will last a few more years.