Did you know wireless carrier T-Mobile offers high-speed internet access to over 20 million households in the U.S? This provides internet access to families living in rural areas and provides a little competition to areas with only 1 internet provider.
What Is T-Mobile Home Internet
T-Mobile home internet takes the same LTE technology to provide high-speed internet to your mobile device and puts it in your home to provide your entire household with high-speed internet. However, instead of a smart device, the wireless signal is picked up by an LTE Wi-Fi Gateway device, which acts as a router for your home network.
T-Mobile started piloting its Home Internet last March. Initially, this plan was only available to 50,000 T-mobile customers. However, T-Mobile has recently expanded to 450 cities and towns, offering home internet to nearly 20% of U.S. households. Let’s look at some of the highlights of this new offering from T-Mobile.
- $50 per month when signed up to autopay
- Covid-proof: it’s all self-installation, so no need for installers to come to your home.
- No hardware fees. $0 hardware lease with service.
- Taxes and fees included.
- No two-year contracts.
- No maddening “introductory” price offers. What you pay at sign-up is what you’ll pay as long as you have service.
- No data caps.
While T-mobile uses 4-G technology to deliver home internet, they provide speeds that are suitable for video streaming, gaming, and more.
Speed and Cost
When it comes to home internet, how fast and how much does it cost are the most important questions. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the vast majority of T-Mobile Home internet customers get downloads speeds of 25 Mbps, which is the internet speed I recommend for streaming video. However, there are reports of people getting much higher speeds. For example, this Reddit post shows a T-Mobile home internet customer getting over 80 Mbps of download bandwidth.
I was equally pleased to see that T-mobile offers their home internet service for just $50 per month (with autopay). Plus, that price includes all taxes and fees. T-mobile also doesn’t charge you a device fee. You literally pay $50 a month for internet access. Plus, the thing every cord-cutter wants to hear, there are no monthly data caps!
The lack of data caps, speed, and price make T-mobile internet a viable solution to those with little to no home internet access options. Even if you aren’t crazy about the idea of fixed wireless internet access, you could use T-Mobile’s home internet plan to get promotional rates from your current ISP.
Setting Up T-Mobile Home Internet
Check the T-Mobile page to see if T-Mobile Home internet is available in your area. After signing up, T-Mobile will send you their LTE Wi-Fi Gateway device. The router has battery capabilities so that you can stay connected in the event of a power outage. Here are the simple steps to follow to get your T-Mobile Home internet up and running:
- Insert the battery into the Wi-Fi Gateway, then secure the back cover with the two included screws.
- The SIM should be pre-inserted. If not, insert the SIM card notched corner first with the gold contacts facing down until it clicks in place.
- Plug the Wi-Fi gateway into a power outlet using the included power adapter.
- If you’re connecting any devices over ethernet LAN, plug them in now.
- On the back of the device, turn the power switch to On.
- In a few minutes, you will see T-MobileWiFi-2.4G and T-MobileWiFi-5G as an available Network on your devices. Connect to them. The password for the network is on the bottom of the T-Mobile router.
Once connected, you can use the T-Mobile Home Internet app or the Web User Interface to change your network’s network name and password. Once changed, rejoin the network with the new name and password and start surfing the web. For more information on setting up your T-Mobile LTE gateway, see this help page.
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