My experiment with T-Mobile for Business’ fixed wireless access is over for the following reasons:
- Weak signal
- 100 GB Data Cap
- The gateway provided is locked down
The best I was able to do in terms of signal is 3 bars, which according to T-Mobile is “good”. Mostly, I saw 2 bars, weak according to T-Mobile. T-Mobile signal is robust in my neighborhood. I stuck the gateway on an extension cord, walked out the door and immediately got 4 bars (very good). Unfortunately, prevailing building construction in south Florida (rebar reinforced concrete block, wire mesh and stucco) makes for an excellent Faraday cage. In this market, FWA (fixed wireless access) providers could use a device designed to be mounted on a building’s exterior with Ethernet running indoors. In fairness, even with weak signal, network speed was better than that provided by AT&T (my incumbent wireless provider) though nowhere near what would be expected from 5G. Latency, however, was significantly higher, so overall performance was a wash.
T-Mobile Home 5G Internet is genuinely unlimited for $50/month. T-Mobile for Business 5G Internet is genuinely unlimited only in certain areas. In my area, $50 is capped at 100 GB. $70 would bump the cap to 300 GB. As a point of comparison, my cap with AT&T is 1.5 TB (1500 GB).
The gateway provided to me was locked down tightly. There was no way to bridge it and without being able to do so, I would have needed to significantly reconfigure my internal mesh network.
So; I cancelled the T-Mobile service during my 15-day guarantee period and sent the gateway back. T-Mobile provided the return shipping label. There was no out-of pocket expense for the experiment.
Neither AT&T or Verizon serve my address with their FWA products. My other option would be Xfinity, who I dumped 10 years ago in favor of AT&T’s then new Uverse service.
I regret doing so but decided to give Xfinity another chance. I ordered their self-install kit, which in my case, ended up being a padded envelope with a coaxial cable as I decided to purchase my own cable modem rather than rent Comcast’s xFi gateway. I had no need for Comcast’s gateway. A cable modem connected to my existing mesh WiFi network via Ethernet would have been more than sufficient.
Self-activating Comcast service is supposed to be as simple as using their app, however, self-activation using the app failed and so too did support’s attempts to remotely activate. I was kindly offered the option to have a technician come out for the low low price of $100. I declined the offer and cancelled the service. In all likelihood, all that needed to be done was for the existing Comcast wall jack to be turned on. If I were confident Comcast would be able to provide stable service, I’d have paid the $100 but the reason I left Comcast previously was their inability to provide stable service. It’s possible that’s changed in 10-years but Comcast was not willing to guarantee the $100 in the event things hadn’t changed.
So; that left me with my incumbent provider AT&T. AT&T has provided me stable service for 10 years. What AT&T hasn’t done in 10 years is improve performance. 10-years ago I opted for 24 Mbps download speeds (more than decent then not so great now). AT&T’s current max speed in my area is 25 Mbps download The 1 Mbps increase is probably because anything less than 25 Mbps download doesn’t meet the FCC’s current definition of broadband.
Still, I wasn’t willing to continue paying $88/month for 24 Mbps. A conversation with “loyalty” got me “upgraded” to 25 Mbps with a promotional rate of $56/month for one-year.
I remain on the lookout for a better option. If family circumstances permitted, I would move.
The consumer and business offerings seem identical (price is the same) with the exception of the business offering providing a static IP address (not a requirement but nice to have).
