While I did conduct many a speed test (see below), mostly I just wanted to see if I'd notice a difference between T-Mobile's ISP and Comcast's. Here's the good news: After six weeks of business as usual - working online during the day, streaming video at night, FaceTime calls to parents and so on - I've encountered scarcely a blip in connectivity. T-Mobile Home Internet speed and reliability Once I tracked down and installed a newer one, the laptop found the gateway.) Now I was ready for full-bore, whole-house testing. (For the record, the issue was an outdated Wi-Fi driver. When I tweaked them slightly, I got a cryptic "installation failed" message.Įventually everything seemed to sort itself out, and once I plugged my Eero base station into the gateway, my laptop had no trouble connecting. When I tried using the same ones as the first time, it wouldn't accept them. (This despite it having a battery backup more on that later.) The app forced me to repeat the entire setup process, including choosing passwords. Then I tried restarting the gateway, which proved a huge mistake: It seemed to lose all my previous setup settings, as though I'd done a hard reset. Read more: T-Mobile announces widespread launch of consumer Home Internet service ![]() A link to the T-Mobile Community Forum stonewalled me as well, because I didn't have a working T-Mobile sign-in (which didn't arrive via email until two days after I received and set up the gateway). In the Home Internet app, there's a Support tab with a link to a T-Mobile FAQ page - but that just took me to T-Mobile's home page, which added to my frustration. So did an upstairs Roku TV and an old basement laptop running Windows 7. Then I pulled out an Amazon Fire tablet it found the network just fine. Suspecting a Windows hiccup, I rebooted same result. Curiously, the T-Mobile gateway didn't appear in the list of available networks. Having successfully connected my phone, my next stop was my Asus laptop. Using the serviceĪfter the initial setup, everything seemed to be working. For the first days of testing I left the latter out of the equation, as I wanted to see how the gateway performed on its own. Previously I used my own cable modem (connected to Comcast) and an Eero mesh router. The T-Mobile Home Internet app guides you through the setup process, which includes scanning a QR code on the bottom of the gateway, choosing a network name (aka SSID) and password and even changing the administrator password if you're so inclined - all pretty standard router-setup stuff, all pretty simple and straightforward. Read more: The best mesh routers for 2021 It creates 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi networks in your home, though it also has a pair of Ethernet ports should you wish to connect, say, a mesh router. Sure enough, it took about three weeks to get the Nokia-made T-Mobile Home Internet Gateway - a silver, cylindrical tower that's both modem and router. I spent just over 10 minutes on the phone with a pleasant operator who answered my questions, approved my credit and told me modem delivery would likely take two to three weeks due to a backorder. satellite and more Setting up T-Mobile Home InternetĪfter using T-Mobile's online tool to check availability, I agreed to let a customer service representative call me - and that call arrived about a minute later. ![]() Read more: The best internet providers for 2021: Cable vs. That's something worth considering if T-Mobile Home Internet is available in your area but you're not necessarily looking to make a change. It's also a new bargaining chip, a way to potentially negotiate a lower rate from other ISPs. Thankfully, there's no contract required to sign up for service, so I was able to get answers to these questions without risk. Would it be fast enough for everyday computing? Could it handle 4K streaming video? Would it work with my mesh network and support the many, many connected devices in my house? Perhaps most important, was it truly unlimited, or would T-Mobile throttle data at a certain point? ![]() The promise of "no rate hikes" has also proven true, after a fashion: I'm grandfathered in at that $50 rate, but newcomers will pay $60. ![]() T-Mobile's deal sounded almost too good to be true: unlimited high-speed service for a flat $50 - equipment, taxes and fees included. My only other broadband option is AT&T, and there's some bad blood there. (Though limited initially, T-Mobile Home Internet is now available to some 30 million US residents, including 10 million in rural areas.) I've been with Comcast for years, angrily watching my bill tick up and up and up. When I first learned that this was available in my area, I was overjoyed.
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