Wireless Joint

In my browsing on the subject of possible wireless Home Internet providers and data only plans I happened upon the website that T-mobile has for unlimited wireless home internet. It is not at there regular wireless pages. It would depend if you are in their coverage area and they supply the hardware to make it work. The fee is $50/mo on auto pay. While not a DIY solution as pioneered by the people here it is still something to consider.

The address is https://www.t-mobile.com/isp

Don't know if that would work for someone. At the moment I am still satisfied with my 20gb plan from Cricket.

Tmobile had this $50 per month "home ISP" plan that they advertised heavily in our area.

It wasn't available everywhere to begin with. The local TMobile reps had no clue what this was and on calling TMobile we were told this was a disruption that TMobile was going to cause to the rural internet market and how they would be our bext champion in the face of expensive and poorly performing local WISPs and satellite.

When we entered our addresses in the neighborhood though on that site, it said "coming soon".

We (a bit over 200 families) bothered them almost a year ago enough, for them to offer it.

Two months ago, after the merger, with a lead of only a month they yanked it saying they were going to "reboot" their "home ISP" initiative with "better and faster 5G".

The thing is, until their grand plans happen, we don't have an internet connection in the meantime!

We had mass migrated to TMobile and run the local WISPs out of business over a span of few months so we dont even have them to turn to now.

Our community has a few temporary measures in place so we don't get fired from our jobs (we cant go to an office to work because the state is in lockdown and office utilities have been suspended because no one is using the office space) and some of us who have the time and ability are doing their bit in figuring out how to fix this mess.

It's very clearly apparent to all of us what this Tmobile "home ISP" plan is - to monetize the spare tower bandwidth they have in rural areas wrapped up in a web of misdirection and lies of how it's actually to champion for the rural internet market.

We were probably on the edge of spare tower bandwidth, which is why they initially refused to give us the service.

We literally read the brochures and flyers they had sent us and worked with Tmobile to hold them to their word.

This lead to all the spare tower bandwidth to go away, cause congestion but the work of getting the merger together had them busy and distracted.

Until two months ago.

It's very important to understand at the system level why a company does things rather than be influenced by why they say they are doing something.

Thank you for the information. One of the issues with all these carrier companies is the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. Often times you only know about a special offer by happenstance and luck. Nor can you rely on anything to stay the same down the road.

I hope your community can come up with a reliable internet solution.

Tmo's Home Internet is targeted for remote areas only, in order to fully utilize their tower's unused bandwidth. There's a reason why they say "What is T-Mobile Home Internet? T-Mobile Home Internet is a new offering from T-Mobile, available at certain addresses in limited areas." It's not for densely populated areas at all, and it's by invitation only based on your location and tower utilization, at least for now.

It is no longer just by invitation only. You can sign up for it at the web site I posted. It however is location dependent so you may not qualify. And by location they do not intend this to be a mobile service. It is fixed location. Funny enough those locations may not be remote areas but areas where people already have other alternatives for internet. As usual those that have get more.

Not to grind a point but all wireless usage is dependent on cell tower bandwidth availability.

I will say just about the last company I would want to deal with is T-Mobile after having a real bad experience with them several years back in regards to returning equipment. However none of the 3 carriers are unique in having lousy consumer relations. One bad experience years back does not necessarily mean much.

In my area I was getting 50mbps down most of the day the 1st month with this service and we used around 800GB.
The second month I was only getting 50mbps down in the graveyard hours and then it almost seemed like we were being throttled at times down to 0.2mbps, lots of buffering only able to use 400GB then, because we were supplementing more with an ipad plan. third month same scenario but worse, throttled all the time and only used 150GB and then said screw it time to cancel. That is another s##tshow in itself. You cannot cancel on twitter or facebook as some people have stated on reddit. I tried they will not do it. You must call the home internet dept. to cancel. Make sure you have time to spare and some extra cocktails. 1st night we tried we were on hold for 4 hours and we got disconnected! Second night same thing! Third night it only took an hour on hold and we finally got through to an outsourced techie who tried everything to retain us. But finally gave in and canceled. In my opinion this service is a scam, They make it so hard to cancel the service and it was rushed out so Tmo could merge with Sprint. Maybe they will make good on this down the road but I won't be back to try it.

UPS just delivered my T-Mobile Gateway (it is the Nokia 4g/5g model) this afternoon. I will be setting it up tomorrow and seeing if it is an improvement over my Cricket Simply Data plan.

My usage needs are much less than most. I have been getting by on 20GB a month without much problem (Heck I was getting by with 3GB a month up until last year). However I got a smart TV over Christmas and to make any effective use of it for streaming I do need a better setup.

Oh well. It don't look like it is going to work. I get 2 bars of connection and web pages barely load and can not even run a Okla speed test. Did run the dl speed test from testmy.net and got a 4mbs down and 654kbps Up. Not good enough to load even Gmail though it should. Google is also slow to come up as it waits for Google apis to load.

My call to T-mobile is on a 2 hour wait time before they call me back so I can arrange sending the thing back. I had some hope after the CS gal assured me over and over that I would be happy with it. But it doesn't work as good as Cricket through AT&T. I took it outside for a bit to see if the signal strength was better (running on battery) but no go from the 2 bars.

I notice the Nokia Gateway connects only to Band 12 just like my WG3526 with Cricket does. No 5G, no second signal.

RSSP: 111 dBm
SNR: 8 db
RSRQ: -10 db
RSSI: -89 dBm

ETA: After talking with the CS for awhile, and him trying they usual stuff and nothing getting better, I said send me the information for sending back the gateway. He than said he had one last thing to try and could he call me back in 10 minutes. No call back after an hour so I am once again on the 2 hour wait list to try and cancel. Pain in the rear. At least I am not sitting on hold all day. Just sitting waiting for a call back.

Final edit: Got it canceled and the return label sent to me. I will be paying for 1 day of service out of the $50/mo for this experiment. At first they were going to charge me from date of activation which was a week before I even got the gateway. But after protest the CS gal said it would be just the 1 day pro rated amount.

During my second CS call the gal tried the infamous the Tower is having problems and a ticket had just been written on it. I doubt that highly and the fact my nearest tower was 20 miles away is the real issue. She also stated that the area would be upgraded to 5G in a few months. But it ain't here now.

All in all T-mobile once again did not impress me. Which is too bad now that Cricket has a hard on concerning routers that are not HD voice compatible. I am still looking at needing a solution before February next year if they do not change that policy.

If got AT&T service should look into getting the post pay unlimited tablet plan.

The trick is getting a SIM/Data plan
The hardware is the easy part.

Step-1 Would get on StarLink waiting list cost $100

Step-2 T-Mobile has a 100Gb for $50 not sure if that will meet your needs.
Would see if they go a post pay and ask if you can use your equipment

SIM Solution, 100GB, 5G, T-Mobile, $50

See link 4G/5G
https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/5 ... got-better

FWIW, I had canceled my TMO service(it was slow, avg. 3Mbps) after about 40 days(though they charged me for 2 months service), and about a month later, they sent me a $100 Visa card. The last thing they said was that I was welcome to try them again, anytime.

gscheb wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 4:02 pm If got AT&T service should look into getting the post pay unlimited tablet plan.

I am not a AT&T phone customer. I barely need phone service so I get my annual phone plan from Red pocket (was $60/yr on Verizon but they now have a $30/yr annual from T-mobile I am going to change to).

I try to work within the Terms of Service. Those that abused the earlier AT&T tablet plans caused that option to be removed. I have little doubt AT&T will get around to squashing the new abuse of this newer unlimited tablet plan.

ylrkdr wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 9:37 pm FWIW, I had canceled my TMO service(it was slow, avg. 3Mbps) after about 40 days(though they charged me for 2 months service), and about a month later, they sent me a $100 Visa card. The last thing they said was that I was welcome to try them again, anytime.

Good of them to do that. They don't promise the 25mbs minimum as such with their wording they just imply they do. For me it is not about the unlimited data since, I am not a big user, it is all about good speed and reliability.

Just a small review of the T-Mo 5G/4G Gateway device from my limited usage:

The Nokia device has a small touchscreen inset into the top of the device. it has 5 screens you can slide access. Being about a 1 inch size it has impossibly small print for anyone that has limited sight. Which for most of the screens are not a problem because the information they display like the Signal bars are really meaningless to know. The one that you do need to be able to read is the SMS message screen and it is very difficult both to read and control (fat fingers are not helpful). Compounded with this is you can not get you messages through the Browser Settings pages and the thing shuts off after a few seconds of idleness. Poorly thought out.

The next thing poorly thought out is there is no display of IMEI and ICCID (Sim card number) anywhere in the Settings (accessed at 192.168.12.1). Overall there is very little that you can control about the device. You even need to download the T-mobile App on your phone to have control over the wireless setup. You are not given it from the Browser accessed web settings.

One final thing I noticed was if my computer went into a sleep cycle the Nokia device went into a idle mode and it took several seconds after the computer woke up to give a connection.

Overall anyone needing any control over their router and settings will be highly disappointing with the unit. You have to wonder what the designers were thinking.

MattB29 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 27, 2021 6:28 am I am not a AT&T phone customer. I barely need phone service so I get my annual phone plan from Red pocket (was $60/yr on Verizon but they now have a $30/yr annual from T-mobile I am going to change to).

I try to work within the Terms of Service. Those that abused the earlier AT&T tablet plans caused that option to be removed. I have little doubt AT&T will get around to squashing the new abuse of this newer unlimited tablet plan.

Hello Again,
I used to feel the same way as you do. Over time that changed for me. Was paying overpriced resellers to feel like I was doing the right thing. When I found out they where just reselling me the same old plan breaking terms and conditions and I lost all my accounts too it changed my mind.
I do break terms and conditions on these plans. But if I don't myself and the people I help literally wouldn't have any internet at all. We have no options, absolutely none. If these big company's like AT&T and etc really don't want us to this they should offer us some kind of plan to do it on our own. They could have data throttle cap on speeds or usage.
The fact is they don't care about us. We are known as the dumb hick deplorables in their eyes. So we got to do what we got to do so we can be a part of 21st century.

Problem is Gscheb is for everyone that really needs a basic internet service in under served locations you have the power users that seriously abuse things (look how many claim over a TB/mo usage off a tablet plan!). The wireless companies than enforce the Terms of Service against everyone and people look for the next loophole to get around.

I do agree it would be great if the Wireless companies had better data plans that allowed BYOD router usage. Or offered a decent device themselves for home usage. Not really sure why they don't.

Thinking a bit about my T-mobile trial a bit more and CS attempts to make it work better. I suspect all they really can do is up the priority for signal since I did not see a band change or signal strength increase. If so that is a bit underhanded and I would bet that such priority change would revert back after awhile.

As an update about this. I received a paper bill in the mail Monday for the first months service which meant they sent it before I even received the Gateway. Plus it was dated as beginning the service one week before UPS had delivered it. I called and disputed the Bill and was told it would be about 90 days before a final billing and reconciliation of device being returned and that I would not be reported as late if I sent them nothing until then. Rather obvious T-Mobile has terrible management and bad communications between the various departments.

Why they sent a paper bill rather than have a online signup during device activation is hard to figure. Especially since you can not even create your online account until you have a functioning T-Mobile phone number in order to get the 2 party security code to create it. Which is also a problematic thing with a Gateway device versus a phone.

Rather amazing. I doubt I will ever try T-mobile again.

Hello,
Seen how people had terrible service with this T-Mobile home isp. Was wondering if anyone had hooked an outside antenna to it? Or how good their signal was to the the thing?
Was it a signal issue or they just de-prioritizing this that hard?

From my research many have been very happy with the service. My case was different and it may be that a external antenna hookup would have improved the signal strength for me. However the problem at my location was the lack of higher speed bands in my location. So a good signal to slow connection is no improvement.

Antennas can not compensate for things not available.

MattB29 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 2:28 pm From my research many have been very happy with the service. My case was different and it may be that a external antenna hookup would have improved the signal strength for me. However the problem at my location was the lack of higher speed bands in my location. So a good signal to slow connection is no improvement.
Antennas can not compensate for things not available.

Thank you for the reply.
Trying to decide if this might work for me. Sounds like would need outdoor antenna for sure on this. Does anyone know what category modem it is? Or what what bands it will combine together.
On my local tower have bands 2, 12, 71 and N71.
Be nice to know what combos can get together would really help guessing what to expect.

You can get the specs for the Nokia gateway on T-Mobile. It is listed as a Cat 12 and has all the bands you list. About the only way you will know what you will get is to try it out and see.

The problem with the outdoor antenna as mentioned before is that you have to disassemble the gateway to access the interior connectors which might make you liable for the cost of the gateway ($370). There is no external antenna ports.

My advice to anyone looking to try out a new carrier, is to borrow a phone (something fairly modern like a Samsung-S8/iPhone-8 or newer) from friends, family, or neighbors on that particular carrier, and run some speeds tests in and around the home. Tests should be run during the peak-hours of 9am-9pm, and off-peak hours of 9pm to 9am. If you get around 10Mbps down/1Mbps up, then with a decent router and modem (CAT-12 or nigher and especially with an external antenna), you should get much higher speeds.

As far as data limits by carriers....
Rest assured they are making good profits on the "average usage" of low and heavy users, otherwise they wouldn't be in business. By recent industry metrics (2020), 95% of customers use less than 20gigs/month while paying the same monthly fee as the 5% who use over 100gigs/month. 4G-LTE users in the US average around 10gigs/month, and 5G users around 20gigs/month on mobile phone. Mobile router users are less than 1% of the total. Reference:
https://www.opensignal.com/2020/10/21/5 ... o-4g-users

Now, if you use only 10gigs/month on an "Unlimited $50/month plan", do you really think that the carrier will refund $40 for the unused portion of your "unlimited data"?? Of course not! If they ever threaten dropping you for high usage, make a fool out of them by asking "So if I only used 10gig/month, you're going to refund $40 each month, right?!" I actually asked this question a carrier some years back, and the confusion of the rep was priceless! ;D Also, routers use don't use ANY voice or text services, which is another significant savings for the carrier. Based on this, draw your own conclusions.