Switching to T-mobile home internet - hopefully it doesn't suck

[BehindBlueI's]

T-mobile has a $200 welcome bonus on a pre-paid Visa to try out their 5G home internet. It's $20/mo less than I'm paying with Xfinity. Using a shopping portal, I got 6500 AA miles to make the purchase online, though for people who don't value AA miles I see Capital One has $110 cash back for their portal.

Using my 5G phone and various speed tests it looks like the service is pretty strong at my house. Now that it's just me and my wife we don't use much data anyway, so the 150-ish speeds are more than enough. Nobody is playing games that require an ultra low ping, no more than one streaming service going at a time, etc.

I've used Comcast/Xfinity for something like 15 years now, but recently they've been dropping my connection frequently and can't seem to be bothered to sort it out despite tearing up my yard and the neighbor's yard so it seemed like a good time to see what else was out there.

 

[bgcatty]

Good luck with that! Seriously, my son had it and discovered that when there was heavy phone traffic in the area, the T-Mobile internet slowed way down. He retuned the equipment and went to a different carrier. It has to do with phone and internet usage on their system in a given locale.
Hope you have better luck.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Good luck with that! Seriously, my son had it and discovered that when there was heavy phone traffic in the area, the T-Mobile internet slowed way down. He retuned the equipment and went to a different carrier. It has to do with phone and internet usage on their system in a given locale.
Hope you have better luck.

Yeah, I read it's last priority on the network. We'll see how it goes, no contract and basically free for 5 months so if it sucks I can explore other options.

 

[Ziggidy]

I tried it in December of last year for about a week. They reneged on their rebate offer so I returned it. During that time I was getting just over 200 fairly consistently.

About 3 weeks ago I tried again but they now have a 2 tier system and since the fast tier was full, I'd be on the 2nd tier (limited data) with the option to move to faster speeds when it opened up. That lasted about 5 hours. VERY bad speeds on the 2nd tier, maybe 70 average...maybe. I returned it and am still waiting for the refund to hit my account. I want it so badly to work so I can leave Xfinity, no specific reason except the cost.

My son has Verizon and it works great. I will try T-mobile again. Know it must work good, they're growing it like crazy with very little negative talk.

 

[Magyars]

We have a T mobile hot spot (4 g). 100 gigs high speed a month. Have had it for a number of years.
This and the much higher priced Verizon are our only choice.
Got to say, overall it is better than we could've hoped for.

 

[2tonic]

Yeah, I read it's last priority on the network. We'll see how it goes, no contract and basically free for 5 months so if it sucks I can explore other options.

5 months, huh?
That's just about the time you'll be able to successfully close your Xfinity account.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

About 3 weeks ago I tried again but they now have a 2 tier system and since the fast tier was full, I'd be on the 2nd tier (limited data) with the option to move to faster speeds when it opened up.

I wonder if that's a region specific thing. I don't have a limited data option available. I have two plans showing, but the only difference is one comes with a mesh wi-fi system included and one is just the hub wi-fi. Are you eligible for the 5G plans or only 4G?

 

[Ziggidy]

I wonder if that's a region specific thing. I don't have a limited data option available. I have two plans showing, but the only difference is one comes with a mesh wi-fi system included and one is just the hub wi-fi. Are you eligible for the 5G plans or only 4G?

It was 5G but at a lower throttled speed and limited data. It was limited to 100GB per month. The next level up had unlimited data. I was told they are doing that (2 tiers) because so many people want the 5g internet that had to make sure they were not draining the towers. I live just outside of Indianapolis.

I only cancelled them the first time because they reneged on the rebate (I'm a hard head) otherwise I probably would still have them.

You have nothing to lose!

 

[bobzilla]

We’ve had it for most 2 years now. It was perfect until the latest massive warehouse was built. Now every weekday at 6pm we lose data for 5minutes to an hour. No option for us as it was this or the $80/mo 5Mb dsl. Moving it to a higher spot in the house has seemed to help.

I’d recommend it as long as you don’t have massive buildings being built around you.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

We’ve had it for most 2 years now. It was perfect until the latest massive warehouse was built. Now every weekday at 6pm we lose data for 5minutes to an hour. No option for us as it was this or the $80/mo 5Mb dsl. Moving it to a higher spot in the house has seemed to help.

I’d recommend it as long as you don’t have massive buildings being built around you.

Nah, we're in an older neighborhood (built up in the late 50's) so it's just single stories above ground and no room to build anything commercial/industrial. I think we're pretty close to a tower as well.

 

[lrdudley]

I just ran this speed test. The bottom entry was comcast. The other five are T Mobil. Have not had any issues. We have three cell phone towers within a close distance. Just outside 465 near Beech Grove. We are pleased with the service and the cost. We run three TVs, three tablets, two cell phones, two computers and a printer all wireless.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I just ran this speed test. The bottom entry was comcast. The other five are T Mobil. Have not had any issues. We have three cell phone towers within a close distance. Just outside 465 near Beech Grove. We are pleased with the service and the cost. We run three TVs, three tablets, two cell phones, two computers and a printer all wireless.






View attachment 367750

Hey, that's awesome. Thanks for taking the time to post that.

 

[awames76]

ive been using it for 2 years now, we before that i had sprint hot spot, it had almost 100 ping with it, tmobile varies depending on time of day, its its bad its around 100 down, I play rust online, i dont have any problems with tmobile, sprint was a problem to game with. I never seen over 100 down, up was bad also. Im paying 50 a month now. we should have fiber in the next 18 months

we constantly use 3 to 5 terabits a month. never slowed us down. alot of times there are tv left streaming all day and night

 

[BehindBlueI's]

we constantly use 3 to 5 terabits a month. never slowed us down. alot of times there are tv left streaming all day and night

We're closer to 7 TB...a year.

 

[BJHay]

We've had T-Mobile home WIFI for a couple of years. We live rural so the only options are satellite or DSL; both of which are far slower for us. T-Mobile is okay. Outages are rare and short, it's fast enough even when my daughter is home on school breaks and gaming. $60/month for unlimited data seems like a good price. Spectrum/Brighthouse is laying fiber optic cable at a glacial pace but I'll switch when I get a chance.

 

[dieselrealtor]

My SIL moved here & tried them, cancelled before 30 days.

We will be switching to someone that is NOT xfinity (I plan to NEVER do business with comcast, xfinity ever again)

This is our blistering fast connection with tmobile as of the time of this post;

 

[4sarge]

T-mobile has a $200 welcome bonus on a pre-paid Visa to try out their 5G home internet. It's $20/mo less than I'm paying with Xfinity. Using a shopping portal, I got 6500 AA miles to make the purchase online, though for people who don't value AA miles I see Capital One has $110 cash back for their portal.

Using my 5G phone and various speed tests it looks like the service is pretty strong at my house. Now that it's just me and my wife we don't use much data anyway, so the 150-ish speeds are more than enough. Nobody is playing games that require an ultra low ping, no more than one streaming service going at a time, etc.

I've used Comcast/Xfinity for something like 15 years now, but recently they've been dropping my connection frequently and can't seem to be bothered to sort it out despite tearing up my yard and the neighbor's yard so it seemed like a good time to see what else was out there.

Our son tried it when it 1st became available. It did Not work out for him but he's semi rural, Acton & I-74 area. I was thinking about it because of price but now, Order on-line and I did not want the hassle of re return, if it didn't workout. I even hate to admit, I'm considering AT&T, a little more expensive, but I'm sure it works. no contract.

 

[DragonGunner]

Hope I can elbow in here and ask if people like phone T Mobile? We thinking of switching to it.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Hope I can elbow in here and ask if people like phone T Mobile? We thinking of switching to it.

It's been great for us. I don't know how much is switching carriers (from Verizon) vs switching to 5G, but I do get slightly better reception at my rural property. There's still shadows due to the hills where nobody gets any service, mind you.

We take advantage of most of the perks. Wi-fi on airplanes, free data and texting while abroad, Apple TV and Netflix, all added value for us.

If you want to sign up, go to a retail location before deciding. If they don't mention it, ask if they have any "insider codes" left to use. If you get one, it's a permanent reduction in your monthly bill that is equivalent to the military/first responder/etc discounts but you get one tier up service for the same price. We switched, got $800 in credit toward our monthly bill, new phones, all the perks mentioned plus a few more, for $20/month more than we were paying on a 4G plan with Verizon.

 

[bobzilla]

Here’s our speed tests from this month



The slow times you’ll notice are around the 6pm time span.

This was from our $80/mo dsl: