T-Mobile Launches Unlimited 5G Home Internet for $60/Month

[Alwis]

Anyone with half a brain doesn't allow direct access to a checking/savings account with or without autopay. There are these devices called debit and credit cards, or PayPal.

I am nut sure how exactly this works in the US, but here in Germany that would actually one of the most secure methods to pay (its called "Lastschrift"). Even when you authorized the company to collect the money from your account you have 8 weeks to reclaim it. You do not have to give a reason, a simple message to your bank is enough. This is used very widely in Germany.

Regarding the price, a lot of people in rural areas in Germany would probably be glad to get unlimited 5G for there home for this price. I am paying about 45 EUR per month for a 100 MBit VDSL connection, including a flat rate to landline phones but not to mobile phones.

 

[laptech]

There is no such thing as 'unlimited' because every 'unlimited' phone/network/celluar/cable/satellite data contract always have a 'fair useage' clause meaning the company will throttle/restrict the service if they feel customers are abusing service.

I remember when 'unlimited' services first started being offered and customers who purchased the service used it as it was described, 'unlimited' but then the tech media world started seeing customer complaints from these customers who complained that they were not getting an 'unlimitted' service but a throttled one and the excuse the service providers gave was that many customers was taking the word 'unlimitted' too literal and that the service was not actually 'unlimitted' but restricted in parts, meaning they had included a 'fair use' clause in the contract which allows the service provider to throttle the service so the bandwith can be fairly used by all.

No service is ever 'unlimited'. Just look at a contract for a 'unlimited' service and you will see why.

 

[Powerbooky]

Price seems good as long as they don't throttle you.

Up till now T-Mobile over here means random disconnects regardless the time of day or signal strength, all for free of course.

 

[grefenius]

I wish T-Mobile was able to offer 4G @ even double the cost in their home country 😕

 

[KennyJr]

I'm an old guy. I'm not sure I understand. Between unlimited T-Mobile and my 75 Mbps DSL carrier I pay ~$100 per month. I do have security cameras and Alexa controlled lights that use wifi.

I'd love to pay just $60 per month but would all the above still be available for me? Please excuse my ignorance.

P.S. I did check and I am eligible.

 

[Td1970]

When I’m at home, why would I even care about inferior 5G? Lol

Did you even read the article?

 

[Td1970]

Thank you for proving my point

What was the point? That 5G isnt rolled out everywhere yet?

 

[GDF]

My Dad has T-Mobile 4g unlimited internet and T-Mobile just upgraded him to 5g. He has it because only has one chose for internet and the rates are ridiculous - a monopoly.

5g at is home so far is not as stable as 4g, bu the also only gets two bars anywhere in his house. 4g over the last year plus has been consistent, just not very fast speeds. As T-Mobile continues to improve 5g will get a lot better. T-Mobile 5 at our house is super fast.

 

[rellimie]

I live in a county 30 minutes north of Pittsburgh, PA. We have a population of 185,000 people. The town I live in has a population of 12,000. I am 5 minutes from a major interstate, big box stores, small businesses, schools, 2 x community colleges, and several local government facilities. I by no means live in a rural area. The only high-speed wired option is Comcast and they end the service 75 yards from my house. in 2021 I have no options for hard line cable tv or broadband internet. My only options are satellite or cellular. In 2021. In a well populated town/county.

 

[DaveN]

How's T-Mobile's coverage in your area? That might give you an idea about how TMo Home will perform when it arrives.

I'm sorry you're not getting the full 200mbps from Spectrum... but at least it's a hardwired connection.

Cellular connections can be more flakey.

I must be lucky... I get more than I pay for with Spectrum. I'm on a 300mbps plan... but I just got 383mbps on a Speedtest...

I looked up T-Mobile's coverage here and the 4G is excellent but the 5G only rated good. I just did another test for Spectrum. 114 mbps down and paying $75 a month for 200 mbps. I asked for a discount and they always say speed is not guaranteed. It was a couple years ago that they sent out promotions saying great news, they are increasing everyone's speed for free. My speed never increased but the monthly charge went up.

 

[M.PaulCezanne]

Most large ISP business models are simply based on crushing the consumer with monopoly-like behavior. T-Mobile has at least always gone for competition and smart (actually deliverable) innovation as a means to increase profit and market share. I switched from ATT about 6 years ago and have never had any complaints.

Their tag line should be: T-Mobile... truly the lesser of telecom evils.

 

[DaveN]

I am on Charter/Spectrum and have been for 14 years. They are actually really good for tech/performance. Here are a few random tips:

1)They will increase (usually double) the downstream speed every 2-3 years FOR FREE but they WILL NOT TELL YOU. You need to call them every 12 months or so and inquire about the CURRENT pricing for the speeds and compare to what you are paying for. If there is a discrepency, they will gladly upgrade you for free. I've done this for 14 years.

2)If you are getting 1/2 the downstream, it can be a bunch of factors:
a)Charter wire to your house is bad
b)your cablemodem is older and doesn't support anything faster than X
c)the coax from the wall to your cablemodem is either loose or bad (this is unlikely but I have seen coax cables becoming loose and your speed then stinks)
d)your ethernet cable from the cablemodem to your computer or router is old (cat 5 or older) or kinked.
e)your cablemodem and/or "account" is provisioned incorrectly
f)don't test internet speeds using WIFI...it could be a dozen reasons why your WIFI router is not giving you great speeds. Plug your laptop into the ethernet port of your router or directly into the cablemodem.
g)if your laptop/desktop is using ethernet, are they CAT 5e cables or better? plain old CAT 5 maxes out at 100Mbit.

My charter/spectrum gives me 450 down/20 up for $45.99/month. It's been this price and speed since summer 2020. I live in CT. I get my full speeds.

I hope this helps.

It has been eight years on Charter/Spectrum for me and my experience has been the exact opposite for me. They are lousy at tech/performance. In my eight years the speed has remained the same, the price has steadily increased, they send out notices about how their service is going to improve for free but it never does, and I receive almost weekly mail offers on how they can 'save me money' if I add services I don't want or need and pay more to do so.

I've contacted service many times over the years and the conversations have always been civil but fruitless. The always end up saying that while 200 Mbps is advertised for my area that not all locations in the area get that speed but they can 'save me money' if I add services and add TV and cell service (I get all the TV I want free over the air and have Consumer Cellular so their money 'saving' offers don't work for me). The coax to their system from modem to street was installed when I got service so it is new. I specifically asked about the modem I have and they said it supports the faster speed. I was just one of the unlucky few according to Charter. Charter is a business that knows it is a monopoly in my area and acts like it.

I tried plugging my computer directly into the cable modem. That is a no go. My main computer (the one I get the speed numbers from) is wired with Cat 7 cable to a 10 Gbps router. I have a network drive on the router and get the full speed from that so the network is not the bottleneck, Charter is the bottleneck. As for wifi speed, again, high speed over wifi to the network drive. Charter's speed is a bit less than the wired speed. Most of my household connections are wired so the wifi devices have available bandwidth.

 

[Razorpit]

Don't forget, even when we had Net Neutrality, wireless was exempt.

I forgot everyone was up in arms about “losing“ net neutrality. Still got the censored internet though by fiat.

 

[bluespark]

This is something I have been waiting for. A mobile hotspot (hopefully) that I can use at home and possibly take with me. And I loathe our cable company, so I really don't want to give them any more of my $$ for high speed internet.

All I want is internet fast enough for streaming. So I could use the various services like Amazon Stick/Roku/Hulu, etc. I am not a gamer nor do I need fast uploads. Just something I can log into and also use to watch my favorite TV programs.

If this is consistently fast enough to do this, I am definitely interested.

It's not intended as a mobile hotspot or one you can take with you outside your home. I've heard that it will not work outside your home (or at least outside the proximity of the particular T-Mobile towers reachable from your home), although I have not tested that. For mobile hotspot usage, they want you to purchase a phone plan.

 

[bluespark]

I'm an old guy. I'm not sure I understand. Between unlimited T-Mobile and my 75 Mbps DSL carrier I pay ~$100 per month. I do have security cameras and Alexa controlled lights that use wifi.

I'd love to pay just $60 per month but would all the above still be available for me? Please excuse my ignorance.

P.S. I did check and I am eligible.

Keep your DSL and don't get this. This is an alternative to other home internet solutions for those who need it. Since you have DSL, this wouldn't add anything for you.

 

[powerbook911]

I might consider it as a backup (I know that sounds extreme), but you know how it goes, Internet goes out when you need it most.

I'm wondering what the latency will be, any experience in your respective cases?

 

[Smith288]

This is marketed towards rural areas where cellular is about the only option.

Which I immediately searched for my sister who lives in rural ohio. "Not available"

She has a 5G signal at her house so I don't understand the issue. Perhaps the demand will release the service.

 

[PowerGala]

For the speed, $60 is a lot.

That was my first thought, you can get gig internet for $10 - 15 more. I'm paying $60 for quadruple the speed.

This is more for people in rural areas. It's been out for over a year as a 4G LTE service, which I have, and it's much better than Satellite which was my only option. I was paying $160 a month for 100 GBs of "priority data". For $50, I get faster and more reliable internet without a data cap.

For people like me, it's a huge deal and it's much cheaper than what I was paying.

I might consider it as a backup (I know that sounds extreme), but you know how it goes, Internet goes out when you need it most.

I'm wondering what the latency will be, any experience in your respective cases?

It depends. For people who are closer to the tower they're getting around 100 down with pings of around 40. I'm much further away from the tower so I'm getting speeds between of around 30-40 with a ping of around 60, but I'm also using the 4G modem. The 5G one is supposed to be faster.

This is not a replacement for gigabit internet.

 

[ikramerica]

FYI, there are 10's of millions of people in this country (like me) that still don't have access to broadband let alone gig internet.

HughesNet Gen 5! Lol

Dish will likely be coming out with their own rural broadband 5G service too. YMMV

 

[Zaren]

Which I immediately searched for my sister who lives in rural ohio. "Not available"

She has a 5G signal at her house so I don't understand the issue. Perhaps the demand will release the service.

My sister lives just outside of the range for both DSL and cable services. She's just a few miles down the road from a university, but the local cable monopoly quoted her $20k to get a line and service to her place. She's had sat Internet before, and won't go back to it. This might finally be a solution for her.

 

[zorinlynx]

I see all the people complaining about how this is not as good as their fiber/cable/etc. connection, and I'm rolling my eyes, because...

THIS IS NOT MEANT FOR YOU. This is meant for people in places where they CANNOT get fiber/cable/etc. If you live in a house that has zero wired Internet options, or maybe at most a slow DSL line, something like this is a GODSEND. I know people who live in rural or semi-rural areas who have to use satellite links because there are no other options. If something like this becomes available they will do a happy dance and throw a party to celebrate.

This is the same problem Starlink is trying to solve and it's good to see competition here.

Everyone's situation is different, try to realize that.

 

[qoop]

Just for once, save your money. Spend it on your loved ones instead.

 

[nutmac]

How do you figure? They provide a modem and local devices will connect to that. Same way I can hotspot any wi-fi device to my iPhone and only need the single cellular connection...

The original poster said no more Wi-Fi.

 

[jlc1978]

I'm an old guy. I'm not sure I understand. Between unlimited T-Mobile and my 75 Mbps DSL carrier I pay ~$100 per month. I do have security cameras and Alexa controlled lights that use wifi.

I'd love to pay just $60 per month but would all the above still be available for me? Please excuse my ignorance.

P.S. I did check and I am eligible.

It depends on how much you are paying for your ISP by itself. If it is more than $60 then this might be a solution since you would save money.

I see all the people complaining about how this is not as good as their fiber/cable/etc. connection, and I'm rolling my eyes, because...

THIS IS NOT MEANT FOR YOU. This is meant for people in places where they CANNOT get fiber/cable/etc. If you live in a house that has zero wired Internet options, or maybe at most a slow DSL line, something like this is a GODSEND. I know people who live in rural or semi-rural areas who have to use satellite links because there are no other options. If something like this becomes available they will do a happy dance and throw a party to celebrate.

Actually, it depends on what fiber/cable/etc. charges and the speed you need. Right now, I get 1GB fiber and HBO Max for $50/month. Once my promo rate expires if ATT won't cut me a new deal and jacks it back up to $100 then TMob's 5G may be a viable alternative. I mainly use my connection for video streaming (generally 1 stream) and email/light web surfing. My iPad, on TMob, works fine for streaming and my internet needs so I see no reason their internet service wouldn't be satisfactory as well.

I have 1GB because it is not capped and the cheapest option available. Looking at my use patterns I would rarely exceed a cap anyway, so if TMob's 5G doesn't work I can drop to a slower capped speed if needed to save money.

This is the same problem Starlink is trying to solve and it's good to see competition here.

Yes, competition is good but I think TMob is looking at a broader user base and going head to head with existing providers, as that density is where money is to be made. Rural availability is an added benefit for them as they build out their phone network since the same antennas can handle phone and internet.

Everyone's situation is different, try to realize that.

Very true.

 

[SVTmaniac]

I’m laughing at all these comments saying it’s too expensive. Must be nice to live in an area with lots of internet options. I’ve been paying $120 a month for 10 years now for 15mbps down 5mbps up fixed microwave internet. Only good thing was truly unlimited data. I welcome this whole heartedly and it cuts my bill in half and is way faster then what I’ve had.