Giving T-Mobile a try


 
LMichaels

LMichaels

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
So wife and I switched out our mobile phone service 3 years ago from being VERY long time AT&T customers (and overall VERY pleased with them) to T-Mobile as we could not justify the HUGE price we paid to AT&T, and that was even with my 25% airline discount. I asked and begged AT&T if they had a senior discount. "only if I have a FLA zip code" was the answer. Well, I have always while working used a T-Mobile backup phone prepaid so we went with the "new" T-M after the Sprint takeover. Overall been VERY pleased
Now getting sick and tired of the HUGE price to Xfinity so recently got an email from TM my address now has the high end 5G home ISP available. Went to the TM store yesterday. Picked it up and just set it up. One complaint is you gotta be pulling teeth to do a simple task like turning off the built in WIFI on their modem/gateway. Luckily I found a Windows script to run in Power Shell and done, so I can hook it up to my own network hardware.
Nice thing is because I am a phone customer ISP is only $40 per month. Far cry cheaper than the $120 I pay Xfinity.
Testing. Will report back if anyone is interested I will report back the good and bad
 
Well one thing I found out. You cannot stream Xfinity TV through it. Bummer for my wife.
 
We use Google Fi for our cell phone service, which uses a variety of carriers depending on where you are at the moment, T-Mobile being one of them. For our area, we are usually routed through T-Mobile, and it works great.

Nice deal with the internet package too.
 
Yeah, I just realized I have Xfinity locked on a contract right now until August. As for buying mobile through MVNO or "resellers" I never do. We have only mobile service no landline and when purchasing through an MVNO you never get the full network of whoever you're being "promised. So you may be partially on say TM with google fi, but you will likely not get all the towers available to you. And can likely find yourself SOL when you need it most. And it's only $30 per month ($60 for us both) it's not worth the risk to me.
Time will tell on this. I did find out I cannot stream Xfinity with say our Roku devices. But, IDK, darn Xfinity is $112 per month for us for internet alone.
 
I switched from AT&T to T-Mobile a few years ago because the signal was better and the $70 for 2 lines for seniors was a lot cheaper. A bonus is the free or discounted Netflix. Tried the internet recently but could not get a good signal near my modem so that did not work out. Their unit had to be placed close to a window to work properly. Since my cameras, alarm and computer backup are tied to the modem, moving it was out of the question. On its own, it seemed to work fine although a lot slower speeds than cable.
 
Yep, it's slower. But, $40 month compared to $112 (which will only increase when my promotion wears off. IIRC something like $60 month. TM promises lifetime price lock. There are going to be some large changes I will need to make in terms of streaming entertainment and DVR
 
We have had TMobile phones for probably six years. And have had the internet since shortly after it was launched. Overall we have been very happy with it. A couple issues with the internet here and there but overall its been great. Saving a whole lot of money for a couple streaming services VS. having directv. We use Roku on all our TV's and it's been pretty darn good.
 
We have the T-Mobile home Internet that we got for our camper. It has been pretty great. We've used it all over the country in our travels, which they say you aren't supposed to do but they have nothing in place to stop it. The slowest speeds we've had is in Tupelo Mississippi and it was running about 80 Mbps, which still is pretty decent for normal remote work and internet needs. Typically we get 300-400mbps. Wife and I both work remote so it's easy to justify having it just for travel since we do a lot of it and work at the same time.

Back in November we moved to South Georgia. We lived in the camper for 3 weeks before our house was ready and at the RV park we were getting about 300 Mbps so we planned to just use it as our home Internet. But, of course the T-Mobile signal is almost non-existent at the new house so we had to get Xfinity Internet for the house and keep the T-Mobile home Internet as our travel Internet. It's as good as it gets for $50 a month and allows us to have our own great Internet when traveling both in the camper or even if we're staying at a hotel.

It's not available in all areas and since they have no physical means of restricting use to specific areas, they are trying to limit use of it in certain markets until they can add the network infrastructure to match the extra demand for it. I've heard some of the hard core gamers say it's not good for the high octane stuff, but for all the normal old people **** we use it for, it's been great to have.
 
We've had T-Mobile for 7-8 years for phone cell phone service. I've had it for twice that from when I worked and traveled extensively in Europe.

I tried the 5g home internet but I received the modem/gateway to our primary home address with the intention of using it in our beach house.
Xfinity recently raised their rates for everything. So I'm paying about $260/month at our beach house and $280/month for our primary home.
I connected it at our beach house and it worked but seemed dodgy...one concern, and I don't know how legitimate it is, is that people say it slows down dramatically on summer weekends when thousands of people come down to the beach using their 5g phones and cell phone 5g gets priority over 5g streaming. I want to give it another try because it kills me to pay Xfinity $260/month for what equates to their old Triple Play package.
 
One thing I could hopefully use is a way to add an external antenna. Just right now I ran a speed test and it's 220 dn and just shy of 7 up. That is with the gateway in my basement near the back wall. Which is where all my cable stuff was originally installed back in 1999. So as my system evolved it was a given everything would be done from there. If I do a speed test outside the house the speeds triple at least and in the upload side they go up nearly 10X. So if TM becomes a long range system, I am going to have to do some "reworking" of the system or at the very least figure out how to do an antenna outside. As it stands though, I personally know of folks with Xfinity paying for lots more and who'd kill for what I am seeing with TM right now.
Not sure what bad weather does to it. If it behaves like satellite TV where bad weather just knocks it offline or not.
Sadly I am stuck with Xfinity for a bit (promotion until August), so TM may end up being "backup" until then.
As of now though, I have not seen one issue relating to lack of capacity. All my, cameras are working, streaming seems to be coming on strong, no degradation of quality or spooling. Honestly cannot find anything to complain about
 
LMichaels said:
One thing I could hopefully use is a way to add an external antenna. Just right now I ran a speed test and it's 220 dn and just shy of 7 up. That is with the gateway in my basement near the back wall. Which is where all my cable stuff was originally installed back in 1999. So as my system evolved it was a given everything would be done from there. If I do a speed test outside the house the speeds triple at least and in the upload side they go up nearly 10X. So if TM becomes a long range system, I am going to have to do some "reworking" of the system or at the very least figure out how to do an antenna outside. As it stands though, I personally know of folks with Xfinity paying for lots more and who'd kill for what I am seeing with TM right now.
Not sure what bad weather does to it. If it behaves like satellite TV where bad weather just knocks it offline or not.
Sadly I am stuck with Xfinity for a bit (promotion until August), so TM may end up being "backup" until then.
As of now though, I have not seen one issue relating to lack of capacity. All my, cameras are working, streaming seems to be coming on strong, no degradation of quality or spooling. Honestly cannot find anything to complain about
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Yeah, it's literally like a cell phone. You want it near a window or as high as you can get it in your home. When we did use it in the home we found the best place for signal and then we have a Google WiFi Mesh system where we run a hardwire from the T-Mobile modem to one of the Google Mesh modules and the other two connect to that module wirelessly so we place them around the house to spread the signal. The Google mesh system is one of our best purchases in a long time.
 
Yeah I had bought a Google Nest WIFI system. Sadly not long afterward I began having connection issues. Rather than try my other Ubiquiti network I went into the modem access and noted the modem kept showing loss of signal. So had XFinity out to check the cabling. Tech said "yeah it seems a little flaky". So he put in a new cable (they just buried it yesterday). Tech wasn't gone 20 minutes and connection dropped yet again. So, on a whim I disconnected the Nest and restarted everything with my slower (but reliable) Ubiquiti system. Sure enough speeds much slower but solid. So, I made a return ticket and sent the unit back to Amazon. The very next day, Google sent me an email noting they noticed an issue with my Nest WIFI gateway that it was constantly shutting down and rebooting. Send them the s/n and they'd send me a new one. Well, too late. I'd already sent it back. I decided to get the EERO 6+ a brand new system. So far after about a month or so (maybe 2) it's been rock solid, has not needed a reboot at all until I unhooked Xfinity and hooked up TM.
Still a little uncertain on how this will go. So hedging my bets right now
 
Nothing against any carrier over another, but here in Arizona cell towers are far and few between, so coverage can get spotty. I found out a couple years ago when we were attending a revival Up in the north east corner of the state at the Navajo Nation with our church members, they only have one carrier in the area AT&T, So we were a party of 10 for this event and no phone service for any one who did not have AT&T, so those people made a lot of new friends wanting to use there phone to check on the kids, and such. They also have a voice mail system that prints out your message as my wife is Hearing impaired and can not always hear her phone messages in a noisy area or in a car. I have the unlimited plan voice, and text, and hot spots for both phones, with like 10 or 15 gigs of data which will slow down after you reach 5 gigs usage, I also have reduced overseas calling on my wires line to S Korea which cut those phone calls down 65 to 70 % , so both phones we pay 96 bucks a month. But we do not have any other Internet service we just use our phones to connect, plus we do not steam movies or TV shows things like that. We do use the GPS and have been in every state and never have any connection issues, and when my wife or if both of us are in S Korea we never have issues texting , or calling anyone. A little more money a month but fits our needs for right now.
 
LMichaels said:
Well, after living with T-Mobile Internet and FUBO TV we made the decision to cut the XFinity umbilical cord. They seem to work just fine. FUBO is pretty different but I get 95% of everything I would care to watch or record so. Deal is done. No more cord
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If fubo gives you any issues, try Philo. It's very cheap and has a pretty decent lineup of channels. It also has Reelz so you can watch On Patrol Live, which is the new name of Live PD. Best show on television. Philo has a good interface and DVR features seemed pretty good when I used it.

Only service that didn't work well with T-Mobile home Internet was Hulu live. They track where you are watching it from your IP address and with the T-Mobile home Internet that would change frequently so it didn't work with it. Maybe they have fixed that now but I switched to YouTube TV already.
 
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My big things were Sportsnet Chicago and Marquee networks so I could catch White Sox and Cubs. Fubo was the only one I found that had them. I will give Philo a look since Fubo is not very intuitive and it's a bit of a struggle to use. Thanks for the heads up as I had never heard of Philo until now
 
Well just looked them up. They have lots of great networks but nothing for sports especially my baseball teams. But, looks like a great deal for $25
 
LMichaels said:
Well, after living with T-Mobile Internet and FUBO TV we made the decision to cut the XFinity umbilical cord. They seem to work just fine. FUBO is pretty different but I get 95% of everything I would care to watch or record so. Deal is done. No more cord
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Just did something similar at our beach house on Saturday. Canceled Comcast TV programming and landline service. Took their 800 gbs internet and kept their gateway for now. Got Fubo TV for Eagles, Phillies and Sixers. Will lose their gateway and replace with these two:

Motorola MB7621 Cable Modem | Pairs with Any WiFi Router | Approved by Comcast Xfinity, Cox, and Spectrum | for Cable Plans Up to 900 Mbps | DOCSIS 3.0 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077BL65HS/?tag=tvwb-20


Limited-time deal: TP-Link AC1750 Smart WiFi Router (Archer A7) -Dual Band Gigabit Wireless Internet Router for Home, Works with Alexa, VPN Server, Parental Control, QoS https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079JD7F7G/?tag=tvwb-20


The modem and router will pay for themselves in less than a year.
Brings the Comcast bill down to about $80/month and shaves $100+/month vs XFinity. Comcast was pushing their Flex box. I told them I didn't want it but they shipped me one anyway. It's free now but offers nothing Roku TV doesn't deliver anyway. It's a setup for revenue streaming down the road for them. I'll return it along with their gateway and cable boxes. This makes the move toward T-Mobile 5g a bit easier if I decide later. But for now Comcast internet is fast and stable and I'm interested to find out how T-Mobile 5g performs this summer when the population goes from 2100-50,000 from July-September.
Two days of Fubo and it seems pretty good so far. With Prime, HBO Max and Netflix from our Xfinity account in our main house, more programming than I'll ever have time to watch. Actually, Netflix is terrible but it's included so why not?
 
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