GravitySucks
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Anyone replace their wired internet service for 5G home internet? Any issues?
5G For Home Internet
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ExFlyBoy5
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We gave it a try before fiber made its way into our 'hood and I was not impressed. The user experience will vary WILDLY depending on your location in relation to towers, data usage over the system and many other factors. For us, it wasn't worth the $50 a month (T-Mobile Home Internet) and it was a ROYAL pain in the arse to cancel the service.
Midpack
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Just make sure you check speeds and availability, what I have seen is pretty low bandwidth for the price. T-Mobile's "33-182 mbps" for $50 is no bargain, you can get a solid 200-300 mbps for $50 anywhere internet providers have competition. I'm paying $55/mo for 300 mbps fiber.
Lewis Clark
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We signed up for T-Mobile a couple of weeks ago, after taking advantage of the free trial, on the strong recommendation of some neighbors.
As others have said the speeds have varied widely. I've measured download speeds as high as 450 MB/s, and as low as about 8 MB/s. I've measured upload speeds as high as 45 MB/s, and as low as about 1.2 MB/s. Averages have been > 100 MB/s down and about 20 MB/s up.
For the way we use the internet, these speeds are adequate nearly all of the time. There has been one time when we have been booted offline, which was fixed by unplugging the gateway for a few minutes. But we also had similar issues with the cable company we just ditched (Spectrum, not a fiber connection).
One advantage for us is that we recently bought a second home. We will be able to take the gateway with us as we go back and forth, so we only have to pay for internet at one home. In fact, you can get internet service anywhere you plug in the gateway, as long as T-Mobile has good service in that area.
In our area, the only fiber service would be about $25 - $30 per month more, and from a company (Frontier) that pushed us away several years ago due to their lousy customer service.
As others have said the speeds have varied widely. I've measured download speeds as high as 450 MB/s, and as low as about 8 MB/s. I've measured upload speeds as high as 45 MB/s, and as low as about 1.2 MB/s. Averages have been > 100 MB/s down and about 20 MB/s up.
For the way we use the internet, these speeds are adequate nearly all of the time. There has been one time when we have been booted offline, which was fixed by unplugging the gateway for a few minutes. But we also had similar issues with the cable company we just ditched (Spectrum, not a fiber connection).
One advantage for us is that we recently bought a second home. We will be able to take the gateway with us as we go back and forth, so we only have to pay for internet at one home. In fact, you can get internet service anywhere you plug in the gateway, as long as T-Mobile has good service in that area.
In our area, the only fiber service would be about $25 - $30 per month more, and from a company (Frontier) that pushed us away several years ago due to their lousy customer service.
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GravitySucks
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Spectrum now for $80 a month. Not real happy as they've been here many times for slow speeds. No competition in the area.
Just ran a speed test and it's down to 15mps. Well short of what I'm paying for.
Just ran a speed test and it's down to 15mps. Well short of what I'm paying for.
Lewis Clark
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One problem with Spectrum (in our area at least) is that it is old fashioned cable, not fiber optic. The more people that are connected to a single circuit and using it at any one time, the slower the speeds will be for everyone. It's a limitation of their technology. We experienced widely varying speeds when we had Spectrum here.
This limitation does not exist with fiber optic service, in my understanding.
skyking1
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Ultimately any ISP can run out of bandwidth, independent of that last leg of technology.
I wrote about my [-]experience[/-] nightmare in this thread... post #20: https://www.early-retirement.org/fo...ile-for-internet-and-tv-streaming-109876.html
I wouldn't recommend T-Mobile 5G after my experience -I'd try again if it was just that the tech wasn't there but the customer service was absolutely horrible and soured me on them for a long, long time.
I wouldn't recommend T-Mobile 5G after my experience -I'd try again if it was just that the tech wasn't there but the customer service was absolutely horrible and soured me on them for a long, long time.
JoeWras
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Yes.
However, the last leg is very crucial to your overall experience. My analogy would be like the tires on a car. Say your car has a fancy 500 hp engine. It will perform differently depending on the tire whether it is all season, racing slick, old and bald, etc. Each tire will work pretty well on a nice, sunny, 72 degree day with no traffic. But if it rains? Divergence.
The problem with cable is the shared bandwidth, and possible "collisions" which cause the connection to ratchet down. This is very common during high usage events (superbowl) and is quite signficant. The problem with 5G are atmospheric issues. All radio suffers from atmospheric effects, and it can be downright frustrating.
Fiber shares the same issue as the other two in that the aggregating device at the central office can become a bottleneck. However, it doesn't share the last run like the other two, so has a clear advantage. However, fiber also has a unique issue where it will work, but because the lines weren't polished correctly at the connections, it can throw a lot of errors. This can create a chronic underperforming connection. This is evident by simply looking at the error rate. A good service provider will monitor this for you and fix it.
JoeWras
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BTW, there's also that agreement you signed that says the service provider can throttle you. This is very common with the "free" or "included" plans that come with T-Mobile for example.
You can thank me. I worked on the equipment that enables mobile carriers to throttle their customers. You are welcome.
You can thank me. I worked on the equipment that enables mobile carriers to throttle their customers. You are welcome.
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GravitySucks
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I worked on fiber to the home back in my previous life. Verizon increased the backbone and added power capacity to my villages Central Office and then canceled FiOS plans here.
Frustrating.
Frustrating.
ncbill
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Where I am in NC only Spectrum is available wired.
$75/month by itself for 200 down...I'm getting a little better than that.
Tried T-Mobile Home Internet...cheaper ($50/month) but slower (around 100 down)
Plus occasionally the latter would just stop working altogether.
Might be because it is assigned the lowest priority for data service on their network.
AT&T installed fiber on the main road just outside our development nearly FIVE years ago but hasn't yet deigned to run it down into our neighborhood.
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qwerty3656
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You can see in the thread you referenced that I also had a terrible experience and terrible customer service with T-Mobile internet.
Just to give an update, I stuck with them because my alternative was a monopolistic cable company who also didn't care about their customers. T-Mobile upgraded the tower near me and now I get acceptable speeds (for me) during high-congestion times (30+ Mbps) and crazy fast (500 Mbps) in off hours.
Alex The Great
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Well, I currently pay $50 per month for AT&T UVerse fiber. It is OK most of the time, with a couple of outages happened a while back when I switched to it from Comcast. Reliable connection is very important as I still work from home. Not sure what advantage T-Mobile Home Internet or other 5G provider has in our area.
RetiredAndLovingIt
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As I type this, just today they started ripping up my street right outside my door to install Frontier FIOS. Spectrum will soon have some competition which is good for us and the service has been awful the last three months or so. If anyone has it, how much are you paying and any complaints? I'm in Southern California
If I didn't have T-Mobile internet (almost 2 years), Spectrum cable internet would be my only option. It was $70 when I left 2 years ago
dance so I'm sure it's $80 by now. I am very happy with my $50 per month T-Mobile internet. Speeds can fluctuate but it works fine for us 99.9% of the time. Last night, 2 of the 3 local towers were under maintenance so we had some buffering for about an hour. 163.49/4.92 this evening. There are constant issues in the neighborhood (according to our FB group and the Spectrum trucks out and about) with Spectrum's internet service. The last disruption went on for over a week. Unfortunately, for others in the neighborhood T-Mobile is not currently accepting any new customers.When Spectrum called me a month or two after I turned in my equipment, they tried to lure me back with a low teaser rate. I asked the rep why Spectrum hadn't given me that rate when I called every 6 months complaining about a rate increase. He looked at my call history and admitted that would've been a good thing to do. I told him I wouldn't switch back to Spectrum even if the service was free! They had their chance and I was done with them.
OldConch
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Switched from Xfinity to T-Mobile's $30/month 5G and are very satisfied.
and a free amazon echo show 8.
very satisfied with t-mobile 5g internet. much better than the centurylink service i had.
I have Verizon 5G Home Internet and I am very satisfied with the service. It has worked flawlessly since I switched from an awful cable company about ten months ago. The cost is $50 monthly, including taxes and equipment fees which is pretty reasonable given that I get 300 mbs down and 20 mbs up.
audreyh1
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The cell signal strength out here is just not strong enough. In fact we depend on our wired internet service to give us WiFi calling at home. We are satisfied with our wired internet service anyway.
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