T-Mobile's $50 Home Internet Service, Reviewed: How It Compares to Cable Broadband

Editors' note, April 4, 2023: This review was written in early 2021 when T-Mobile first unveiled its 5G home internet product, and updated six weeks later with additional impressions. We've updated it to reflect current pricing and speeds where noted (with accompanying editors' notes), but the original review is presented below, otherwise largely unchanged. However, check out our 2023 T-Mobile Home Internet review for our latest opinion on this service.  

It was early in 2021 when I started testing T-Mobile Home Internet. It was part of a pilot program that hadn't fully rolled out yet and was priced at $50 monthly -- an exciting price point for a then-new player in the home internet space. (Editor's note: The price bounced around a bit, at one time hitting as high as $60. But as of April 2023, T-Mobile Home Internet is back to $50 with autopay, or $55 without.) 

In the interim, I canceled my Comcast Xfinity internet service, which had been billed at $106. Did I make the right call? Did I encounter any major problems? What was the overall experience and would I recommend it to others?

Watch this: Testing out T-Mobile's home internet service

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Here's everything you need to know about the service, including what I learned during my first several weeks. 

T-Mobile Home Internet rollout

I was overjoyed when I learned this was available in my area. (Though limited initially, T-Mobile Home Internet is now available to some 40 million US residents, including a third in rural areas.) I'd been with Comcast for years, angrily watching my bill tick up and up and up. My only other broadband option was AT&T, but there's some bad blood there. That was not going to happen.

T-Mobile's deal sounded almost too good to be true: unlimited high-speed service for a flat $50 -- equipment, taxes and fees included. The promise of "no rate hikes" has also proven true after a fashion: I'm grandfathered in at that $50 rate.

But I had concerns. 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 connected devices in my house? Perhaps most important, was it truly unlimited, or would T-Mobile throttle data at a certain point?

Thankfully, there's no contract required to sign up for service, so I was able to get answers to these questions without risk. It's also a new bargaining chip, a way to potentially negotiate a lower rate from other ISPs. 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.

Read more: The best internet providers for 2023: Cable vs. Fiber vs. satellite and more

Setting up T-Mobile Home Internet

After 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. 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. My total up-front cost: $0.

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. 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.

Read more: The best mesh routers for 2023

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 straightforward.

Previously I used my own cable modem (connected to Comcast) and an Eero mesh router. 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.

Using T-Mobile's home internet service

After the initial setup, everything seemed to be working. Having successfully connected my phone, my next stop was my Asus laptop. Curiously, the T-Mobile gateway didn't appear in the list of available networks. Suspecting a Windows hiccup, I rebooted; same result. Then I pulled out an Amazon Fire tablet; it found the network just fine. So did an upstairs Roku TV and an old basement laptop running Windows 7. Huh.

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. 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).

Read more: T-Mobile announces the widespread launch of consumer Home Internet service

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. (This despite it having a battery backup; more on that later.) The app forced me to repeat the entire setup process, including choosing passwords. When I tried using the same ones as the first time, it wouldn't accept them. When I tweaked them slightly, I got a cryptic "installation failed" message.

Eventually, everything seemed to sort itself out, and once I plugged my Eero base station into the gateway, my laptop had no trouble connecting. (For the record, the issue was an outdated Wi-Fi driver. Once I tracked down and installed a newer one, the laptop found the gateway.) Now I was ready for full-bore, whole-house testing.

T-Mobile Home Internet speed and reliability

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 encountered scarcely a blip in connectivity. While I conducted many speed tests (see below), I mostly wanted to see if I'd notice a difference between T-Mobile's internet service and Xfinity's. Because in the end, what matters is, can I reliably access the internet?

So far, so good. I'd even say very good.

But there are definitely some caveats to consider, starting with this: Although T-Mobile's marketing campaign trumpets this as a 5G home internet service, there wasn't mention of 5G anywhere on the T-Mobile Home Internet signup page. (Editors' note: The current version of the signup page clearly includes a 5G callout now.) I mention that because, six weeks in, I still have no idea if I'm getting 5G or not.

The gateway supports 5G where available but downshifts to 4G LTE where not. According to T-Mobile's coverage map, I should have 5G at my house. However, nowhere -- not on the web admin page, not on the T-Mobile Home Internet page, not on the gateway's status screen -- is there anything indicating "5G." (Or, for that matter, 4G LTE.) 

Does it matter? Not really, as long as I'm getting good performance. Which I am. I just wish there was some at-a-glance way to know if I'm getting the 5G I was promised. Certainly, the test numbers don't tell the whole story:

These come from Speedtest, the service I've long used to gauge internet performance. As you can see, my upload and download numbers are all over the place. I've seen speeds as low as 6.8Mbps down and 9.4Mbps up and as high as 132.1 and 77.1. This is despite the gateway's little touchscreen display consistently showing 4 to 5 bars (much like on a phone) and the app reporting "very good" or "excellent" connection quality. 

Let me pause to note that so many variables are involved here -- local congestion, proximity to towers, signal interference within the house and so on -- that my experiences can't be considered typical. They're my experiences. Your mileage absolutely may vary.

I can say that after some pretty concerning slowdowns during week one, I experimented with moving the gateway to different areas of the house. To my surprise, relocating it to a second-story window yielded a huge performance bump. Those are the numbers you mostly see in the chart above. Needless to say, gateway placement can make a big difference.

I also did some side-testing at my mother-in-law's farmhouse (about seven miles due west of where I live), where cable internet isn't available. In fact, her only option until now has been a slow, expensive, data-capped satellite service.

After plugging in the gateway, I was chagrined to discover it showed only two bars -- "weak" connectivity, according to the Home Internet app. But then I ran Speedtest: Download performance was hitting 126Mbps, which seemed amazing, while uploads were only about 9Mbps.

Why the disparities? See above regarding variables. I'll simply say that she went ahead and subscribed to the service, and for the most part, it's been working well. And that's the key: The only way to know if T-Mobile Home Internet will be a good fit at your house is to try it.

T-Mobile Home Internet issues 

Although I've had good results overall with performance -- I've streamed hours of 4K video, participated in countless Zoom meetings, downloaded big games to install and so on -- not everything about the service is perfect.

• In addition to the aforementioned laptop problem, my RemoBell S hard-wired smart doorbell stopped working properly. The video became highly pixelated and pretty much unusable. I can't say why, as the "front end" (meaning the doorbell's connectivity to my Eero-powered Wi-Fi network) was fundamentally unchanged. Interestingly, I have a Wyze Cam Outdoor installed about 15 feet from the doorbell, and it's still operating normally. I then swapped the RemoBell for a Wyze Doorbell; the latter works perfectly.
• I also learned that although the gateway includes a battery backup, it disables Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity while running on battery power. That means it's of no use during a power outage. According to a T-Mobile representative, the battery is there so you can move the gateway around your house and see where it picks up the best signal.
• My first bill arrived at $55, not $50. It turns out you need to activate autopay to get the lower rate -- easy enough to do online, but I was certain I'd already set this up when I first signed up for service. My mother-in-law had the same experience.
• As of early 2021, there was a concerning bit of fine print on the sign-up page: "Not compatible with some live TV streaming services." Thankfully, that's specifically in reference to Hulu Plus Live TV, which is "not supported due to a technical requirement in delivering the service." A T-Mobile representative said the company is "working closely with Hulu to resolve this as quickly as possible." Although I don't have that service, I've tried "regular" Hulu and probably a dozen other streaming services; they've all worked normally. (Editors' note: That particular restriction no longer appears on T-Mobile's FAQ page.)
• Although the gateway has its own phone number, T-Mobile Tuesdays are not officially available to Home Internet subscribers. (Editor's note: T-Mobile Tuesdays are now available as a perk to all T-Mobile Home Internet customers.)
• If you enjoy online gaming, this may not be the ISP for you. I've heard anecdotally and in the user forums (see below) that Home Internet produces too much lag, which can result in a poor gaming experience.

I consider nothing here a deal-breaker, but I recommend perusing those forums to see what issues might be problematic for you.

T-Mobile Home Internet tips and tricks

Want to get the best experience? Here are some ideas based on what I learned over the six weeks.

• Experiment with gateway placement. I tried four different spots in my house, eventually landing at a second-floor bedroom window. The performance differences were considerable from one spot to another.
• Reboot the gateway regularly. Whenever I notice my Speedtest numbers dropping, I sign into the gateway admin portal and inevitably discover that the "Secondary signal" (the one connected to 5G) has disconnected. Rebooting the gateway reestablishes the connection. Unfortunately, there's no way to do this via the app; you must sign into the web portal. I recommend doing this once a week.
• Join the community forums. If you're encountering a problem, chances are good other users have encountered the same one. T-Mobile has an online forum devoted to Home Internet; it's a great place to share questions and search for answers.
• Expect issues. This is a major rollout from T-Mobile, one that's based on relatively new 5G technology. There will likely be growing pains in the form of performance and/or reliability issues, overwhelmed customer-service departments and so on. 

Is T-Mobile Home Internet ready for prime time?

So after nearly two months with T-Mobile Home Internet, what's the verdict? I'm keeping it, at least for now. There's no contract, so I can always return to Comcast if things don't work out. And even if it's not perfect 100% of the time, neither is Comcast -- and imperfection is a lot more tolerable when you're paying less than half what you were before.

If this service is available in your area, I'd say it's definitely worth a try. If nothing else, as noted above, the presence of a new competitor gives you a bargaining chip; you might be able to negotiate a lower rate from your current provider.