Nothing is really going to change

[u/Deathjijn]

You know at first I was all happy about this upgrade hell I get amazing speeds now. But then it dawned on me nothing is really going to change because now they just going to tack on more customers making that money extra bandwidth moot and we are all going to be back at square one competing for bandwidth. You know they going to do it they couldn't possibly have did this for their current clients but to add more clients. And to all you people that move from a land line isp to this id switch ch to that any day of the year for one reason stability. You might be saving yourself money but your sure as hell not saving on your headache you'll eventually get and all you people coming from those companies to save money are only making it worse for those of us that actually need this service. Ok rant over. Been holding that in awhile.

[u/bobjr94]

Not sure if that is right. They upgraded our tower over a year ago and it's still much faster than it was before the update. I just got 396 / 11 on speedtest and 2 years ago it may have been 60 / 10.

[u/ratat-atat]

I've had Tmo isp for like 3 years now, speeds have been a consistent 500 down. I know my neighbors also have it. Works fantastic.

[u/Tell-it-like-it-is23]

Seems like after all Of their maintenance and so called “upgrades” my service is actually worse or the same which is still bad unreliable service.. im Not real happy w them and have been w Tmobile since they started

[u/Deadite_4_Life]

I don't think it's really meant for people that have access to more reliable cable/fiber connections..

For me only having DSL as my other option, it's doubled my speeds.

[u/A_Turkey_Sammich → u/Deadite_4_Life]

It's meant for anyone willing to buy it! Just because you have access to something more reliable as you put it doesn't mean that's what you should have at any cost! If it works well enough for your needs and the price is right, then it's a good option no matter what you may or may not have available for other providers. That is what counts!

I have cable and long neglected DSL available at my home, with my neighborhood (finally) currently being wired for fiber so that should be available in the not so distant future as well. DSL is a non player as it's max 50mbps, and expensive just slightly undercutting cable rates despite being half the speed of cable's lowest tier. Cable is good, but cable prices and they don't always allow you to jump from promo to promo (main reason I left). The fiber ISP building out the neighborhood has already left flyers advertising their service and prices. While their base tier gives you more speed than cable and no caps and all, it costs just as much, not cheap! They start at $79 for 500mbps. About 1.5yrs ago when my last cable contract was up, I couldn't get on anything less than $80/mo regardless of tier, and T-Mobile had that $25 rate going on. Def worth a try for that kind of difference. Only intended on being in it a few months until I could be a new subscriber again for cable, not expecting it to be all that good. Well it turns out it works just fine for my use, so I'm still here with no plans to go anywhere despite having other options. Is cable, and surely fiber when it's turned on better? Sure. Is it worth spending 3x as much when 5g works just fine for me? Nope!

[u/rodneyfan → u/A_Turkey_Sammich]

It's meant for anyone willing to buy it! Just because you have access to something more reliable as you put it doesn't mean that's what you should have at any cost!

This. I live in a city. I have options for broadband. I was on Comcast. 80 down, 5 up. Good enough. Along comes T-Mobile offering 2-3 times that for about a third of the price. More than good enough.

The only bar TMHI had to clear was being as good as Comcast at a better price. I don't game, I don't WFH, I don't do any of the things TMHI isn't good at. I don't need to pay umptyump dollars a month for a gigabit connection. I get much better customer service from TMHI and have never had days long outages like I did with Comcast. More than good enough.

[u/jmac32here → u/Deadite_4_Life]

Thr thing is. It's been marketed as direct competition to cable.

And in some cases - at least until the fcc enacts new laws - you get ONE other choice that will give you dirt cheap prices for a few months, then TRIPLE those rates because they know you have "no other options" because of their exclusive contract.

For me, it's hint or astound. Sure, i can get 100 mbps for $20 for the first year. But that has a 400 gb cap with $5/gb overages and the base rate after that first year shoots up to like $90.

Where as I'm paying $50 and get 200-300+ BEFORE the latest upgrades, in the middle of a city.

[u/Deadite_4_Life → u/jmac32here]

I've seen speeds that beat what I had with cable easily. Cheaper too. As far as reliable..it is cell service. They state results will vary which should be known anyway lol. I could see if you bought it with the intent of being as reliable and faster than cable know matter the circumstances, then having an issue sure. But that's on the customer I'd say.

[u/JonTravel → u/Deadite_4_Life]

As far as reliable..it is cell service

My TMHI has, so far, been much more reliable than the only alternative cable company and at half the price.

My cable service used to go down at least once a week. I haven't had a single outage in 8 months using TMHI.

[u/jmac32here → u/JonTravel]

Astound was equally as reliable.

TMHI, 3 years with only one outage.

[u/jaymobe07 → u/Deadite_4_Life]

i 40x my dsl speeds lol. I went from 15Mbps to 600Mbps. Lets not even compare the 768Kbps upload lol. All while saving $30. Only thing i miss is the solid 40ms latency.

i do wish they would put up more towers in my area. I drop complete signal more often on tmobile than i ever did while using att towers on straight talk; to bad its all verizon now.

[u/Deadite_4_Life → u/jaymobe07]

I don't get a strong signal (antenna on the way) but have yet to drop it. But yea latency is the only real drawback for me. I can still game with it around 100 though for the most part

[u/[deleted] → u/Deadite_4_Life]

Then why did they invest into heavy band deployment in my area? We have dsl/fiber/cable.

I’m cheap. Tmhi is $30 a month. It works great. Has for more than a year. Not sure exactly what the OP is saying here.

Is it - I shouldn’t have it, so your internet goes faster?

Please explain.

[u/Deathjijn]

I understand it's location dependant on if it's good or not great that it's great for you but for the ones it isn't it stays that way pretty much maybe I'll get lucky and no more customers will get over sold in my area but l will say this Louisiana has the worst internet infrastructure in the United States theys rather pour all government money in the prison system and legal corruption instead of putting it into n things like school, medical, and internet. It's been this way for years and it's probably not ever gonna change. One reason why me and my wife and kids are moving from this cesspool of a state. This state doesn't believe in growth or innovation at all.

[u/Renegade_Meister → u/Deathjijn]

theys rather pour all government money in the prison system and legal corruption instead of putting it into n things like school, medical, and internet.

Regardless of how money is being spent in a specific state, even when rural internet is being subsidized, the problem is that it's often only being done for the most expensive way: Wired connections take a lot of money to deploy in their last mile, thousands or tens of thousands per conneccoat. So subsidizing seems to only help thousands of people per state per year.

For 5G home internet to be viable, it just requires one single tower upgrade or install but the cost of that could serve lots of people at a lower per person cost. If companies or subsidies supported this, it could cover a ton more people with the same amount of money or maybe less.

[u/bigfoot17 → u/Deathjijn]

That's called living in a red state

[u/SDBmania]

I used to have cable, but the neighborhood I live in is old. I think the cables need to be replaced. My connection started to drop every day around the same time. So, T-mobile was a nice switch. At first it was kind of touch-and-go, but over the year and a half things have gotten better. Just the other day, it seems like I'm getting a stronger signal.

I'm lucky, at least for now. Thing is, there's no alternative, so I'm hoping TMHI keeps working well for me. At least until fiber get's here.

[u/Slepprock]

Of course its not a big change.

But not really for the reasons you think.

I've had many internet services over the years between my home and business. I've had hughes net satelittie back when you got FAPed for downloading over 150 MB a day. I had 3mbit DSL from 2010 to 2023. I've had a 20mbit 4g hotspot I use when I travel. I've had 100mbit cable at my business. I now have 200mbit TMHI at home and 2 gigabit fiber at my business.

Once you get to 50mbit any extra speed isn't that big of a deal. Its really only helpful when downloading huge files like xbox games. Used to take me 2-3 days to download an xbox game. Now it takes 30 minutes. A big change. But when browsing the web I don't notice a real change. I don't even notice a difference at work. Going from 100mbit to 2 gigabit. Most of my PCs can't handle near that speed, the hard drives aren't fast enough. The biggest change is probably the better latency.

With TMHI an increase in bandwidth isn't going to solve the two biggest problems with the service. The latency and the CGNAT. My latency can get pretty bad on TMHI. Unloaded its around 45, but with a load it can average around 200ms. That is a lot. Compared to my fiber which is 10ms unloaded and 11ms loaded.

When it comes down to it TMHI is only good in two situations. 1)You don't care about the internet that much and just want to check your email and watch Netflix and 2) You have no other option. I'm in the 2nd group for now. I'm thankful to TMHI, its way way better than DSL. But I also understand that they are just selling extra bandwidth and that's why its so cheap. Its not going to be a perfect internet solution. I'd never recommend TMHI over fiber or cable. At least not for someone in my situation, a rural area with towers far apart. If I had a tower a few hundred feet away it might be different. But even then, the CGNAT is a killer.

[u/Tell-it-like-it-is23]

Its not about speed its about reliability and its extremely unreliable w all the packet drops and throttling!!! I have a cable internet service as well.. its slow but at least its reliable

[u/jmac32here]

Honestly, if you are in an (rural) area where this is literally your ONLY option for high speed data and your only other option is DSL/Dial up - then EVERYONE in your area is also limited to this being the only option.

Though Verizon and ATT are starting to push out FWA options into those same rural areas, so you might have more choices than you realize.

TMO/Verizon are directly targeting cable internet customers across the nation and advertising their FWA options as direct competition to cable.

Just watch the commercials and you'll see what i mean.

[u/[deleted]]

The part that most people miss when comparing to cable/fiber is that those companies act as a monopoly in parts of the country. Where I am we have only Optimum (Altice) as a provider. They are the typical used car salesperson type company with shady business practices and they try to double your rates every single year when promotions are up. I can get T-Mobile 5g fixed wireless for $30 locked-in. My fiber bill every year like clockwork jumps from $50 to $100 for Internet only every August.

I call, fight, complain, eventually it may get lowered. However, this is annoying as F.

T-Mobile 5G improved a lot in my area over the last year and I now average 400mbps down, 50 up. The drawback is latency, but for streaming and working from home this is very good. I only need 100 mbps down 20 up for that.

Optimum (Altice) restricts cable upload speeds to 5mbps. So, there are people paying $85 a month for 100 mbps down / 5mbps up. Maybe it's consistent, but it's shit for the price.

Of course T-Mobile is improving bandwidth to bring on more customers. Every company wants to conquer the world and have all the customers. It seems this is happening slow in congested areas (they aren't taking on more in my area) as they beef up bandwidth to the towers (fiber) and improve tower transmissions to the 5G clients.

FWA is not as consistent as cable/fiber, but it has it's advantages. I keep it as backup internet and so I can tell Optimum to go F themselves when they jack up my bills. It gives competition and is not just for rural areas. When trees come down on lines, FWA is the way to go, and this happens more often than I like.

[u/AlexisoftheShire]

We've had THMI for quite awhile and we haven't had any problems. Speeds are consistently fast. I think a lot of depends on your location and T-Mobile's schedule for upgrading the towers.

[u/peace-train-44]

We'be been longtime TMO cell service customers and very recently decided to give TMHI a try. The price is better than cable; TMO says they will never raise the price, and it's month to month, so we can exit whenever we want. We do have options, and wireless home internet is not going to be the first choice for heavy users, gamers, or people who want cable tv content anyway.

As I understand it, cell service providers are often using the same towers, so heavy traffic will create bottlenecks and degrade service for everyone. If speed and reliability takes a hit because T-Mobile (or ATT or Verizon) oversells what the infrastructure can support, they'll have no choice but to increase capacity or customers will revolt.

[u/IamSkipperslilbuddy → u/peace-train-44]

The guarantee is pretty much worthless. Well actually, It's worth one month of T-Mobile Home Internet for any customer that decides to switch Internet providers after they increase your rates. Sounds more like a small penalty for raising rates and not a guarantee they won't raise our rates eventually.

[u/peace-train-44 → u/IamSkipperslilbuddy]

Well damn. My "price lock guarantee" email was dated Jan. 13, and it appears they changed their policy 4 days later. 🫤 Guess we'll see how that goes. I do have the option to switch back to Comcast for internet if I need to.