home internet does not work well for gaming.

I’m sure nikka639’s answer was well-intended, but a wi-fi connection depends on what kind of internet connection you’re using.  T-Mobile’s home internet connects to mobile towers in the same way that a phone does.  The equipment that is used is similar, but not identical.

T-Mobile could definitely address some of the issues that many users are facing with its internet product.

One of the reasons I use T-Mobile instead of Spectrum is that I don’t like how deceptive Spectrum has often been with its customers.  It had to settle with the New York State Attorney General, but has kept doing more or less business-as-usual.  Don’t trust its claimed speeds until you test it for yourself, over the course of days and weeks.

So it has bummed me out to find out that T-Mobile is also not entirely upfront.  They were totally honest about their speeds.  The speeds have been a little less consistent lately, and I’m told they have had problem with a tower.

But the connection itself -- as in, remaining ON -- has been impressively reliable.  As in, more reliable than Spectrum and arguably more reliable even than fiber, because if there’s a problem it jumps to a different tower.  That tower may have lower speeds, but the speeds are still fast enough for streaming media, and certainly for browsing or talking on the phone over wi-fi.

However, after all the hubbub about their $50 per month pricing, after roughly a year they tried to raise the price on me by $5 because they changed what payments are accepted for autopay.  That was underhanded, and reminded me of Spectrum.

T-Mobile’s internet has also caused me some headaches.  I cannot stream the local PBS station because the IP address that comes up for my internet is too far away.  I have been able to stream a station that 500 miles away but not ones that are within 25 miles.  (VPNs and proxies help only so much with this sort of thing, as Roku and others are leery of people trying to bypass their regional restrictions.)

Although I am not a major gamer, of the games I have tried, some recent ones have worked OK -- though I assume with some lag -- while some older ones do not recognize the internet at all.  I assume that as companies see how many T-Mobile customers there are, they will try their best to support us.  But there is only so much they can do.

As another example of a side effect, Wikipedia has taken to not allowing T-Mobile users to edit pages at all without logging in, and does not allow us to set up accounts through their normal process.  It claims that T-Mobile’s network is a unique problem for them, which means that T-Mobile may have chosen, to some degree, to create these headaches for its users.  Wikipedia has a page of “Advice to T-Mobile IPv6 users” --

“When you access Wikipedia from an IPv6-compatible device on the T-Mobile network, a proxy server (with its own IPv6 address) retrieves and sends data to Wikipedia's servers on your behalf rather than your mobile device doing so directly. However, a T-Mobile IPv6 user editing Wikipedia without an account cannot be uniquely identified as their IP address rapidly changes. T-Mobile has also configured their IPv6 servers in such a way that a single user may have their IP address change each time they restart their phone. These factors all make it nearly impossible for us to block a single vandal without causing some ‘collateral damage’ by inadvertently range-blocking innocent users.”

I’ve discussed this with reps at Wikipedia, and I don’t think Wikipedia has handled it all that well.  Most home internet other than fiber or high-end does not guarantee a stable IP address.  But T-Mobile’s approach does seem to add new layer of problems.

Plex for example doesn’t like T-Mobile’s internet for streaming media outside the local network.  I’m sure there is a way to make it work, but it could be a pain and might not work forever.

Some VPNs will struggle with T-Mobile, although it is fairly easy to get one to work -- and many of them will automatically reconfigure themselves to work.

I haven’t attempted anything especially fancy, but have read some of the lengthy documentation by people who have tried to set up various services, servers, ports, or whatever.  Is it worth it to go through all the extra hassle?  I think if you buy a fixed IP that redirects traffic, and route the traffic through that to your box, it may work.  But that’s extra hassle and expense. 

I would prefer to use my own router, and have gotten mixed messages about how well that might work when connected to the T-Mobile gateway, so I haven’t tried that yet.  I have enough trouble as it is.  From what I understand, I suspect that I would run into issues with duplicate IPs, and that Roku would complain, and so forth.  Whereas with many other internet services, using your own router nowadays is plug-and-play.

Since reliable streaming has been the best aspect of this, I don’t want to sabotage it by adding another layer.  (It’s been reliable other than getting confused about where I live, so I get ads in Spanish or from places I don’t live, and may be blocked from streaming something local.) 

One reason I’d like to use my own router is that the wi-fi on the gateway is only OK.  It’s not as fast as it should be, and it has limited range.  But you can’t attach an antenna, either for the wi-fi or to pick up a different 5G tower.

One time when internet speeds slowed down drastically (from 100 Mbps to 10 to 20), I talked to T-Mobile support and a guy suggested getting a different gateway box.  But the stores didn’t have it; one had claimed to but then didn’t after I drove 45 minutes to pick it up.  Then a different T-Mobile rep on the phone told me that the boxes are “for new customers only.”

That new device can use an external antenna, but later I was told that you have to buy the antenna separately, and it’s not cheap.  So that tip probably wouldn’t  have helped.

The internet does work.  But my phone gets better internet speeds than the T-Mobile home internet box, which is silly.

I have had overall great customer service experiences with the service reps in the Philippines who handle T-Mobile prepaid, as well as many of the home internet calls.  But I have had some complaints with T-Mobile as a company.  The store wanted to charge me more for a new phone than I could have gotten it anywhere else.  I showed them that they were charging me more than Samsung charges retail customers who order from them!  In fact, a rep later told me that prepaid T-Mobile customers are actually Metro customers, even though they have never told me that.

I’ve been a customer for a long time -- with multiple devices, phone, internet, mobile hotspot -- but didn't feel especially valued.  So I switched my phone to a brand that buys spectrum from T-Mobile.  That brand, Tello, is based in the South and even when connecting to their servers, via my local towers, my phone’s 5G is often faster than the home internet speeds.  That’s even even that as a secondhand T-Mobile network user, I get lower-priority access to the network.

So home internet users may not get highest priority.  During times of high network traffic or if a tower is having issues, speeds will slow down even further.

Among the major players -- Spectrum, Verizon, etc. -- I’ve found T-Mobile to have friendlier, better reps.

And I think that T-Mobile is working hard on its home internet, and that it will get better over time.  I would recommend it to people in many areas.

Even so, people should go in understanding that it is not exactly like other internet.  You should ASSUME that you will encounter some problems that you would not encounter with, say, fiber.  Of course, you should ASSUME that you will encounter some problems if you use Spectrum or a cable company, but more so problems with honesty, support, consistency of the connection, or fees and price increases.

With Spectrum, you have an idea of what surprises to expect.  T-Mobile is unique enough that even what surprises you will find are themselves a surprise.

I think the latest boxes are better than the first batch of them, and that T-Mobile has worked out some of the glitches with its product.  Though incredibly, that means that there used to be EVEN MORE!

What has bothered me about Spectrum’s advertising is that they have often implied that their product’s speeds are X or Y and are akin to the same listed speeds from a fiber company.  That’s baloney.  Spectrum is less reliable, and its speeds vary based on how many people are connected.  I know from the many friends I’ve known with the product -- I’ve dealt with tech support myself many times -- in different places that the product can be glitchy and fail to meet advertised speeds, sometimes by a wide margin.

Fiber, by contrast, has fixed upload and download speeds that match the claimed speeds.  Of course, if somebody hits a major line in the neighborhood while doing construction, then there will be no internet at all until the line is fixed.

T-Mobile internet is perfect for someone who wants to reliably stream shows for a good price, because so far it has ALWAYS worked for that.  In fact, more reliably than any other internet I have seen.  Fiber and DSL are stable but again dependent on the lines to where you live being completely intact.  They are often strung along telephone poles or are underground where workers are working on other equipment.

T-Mobile is in my view more honest about speeds than Spectrum.

At the same time, T-Mobile has dropped the ball in advertising their service by not disclosing that their internet is not equivalent to other internet, and has many limitations that other brands do not have.

This has been fairly long, but have listed only some of the potential issues.  Your own issues will be different, but if you do anything other than browse and stream media, then you SHOULD expect to run into some glitches.

If T-Mobile is reading this, I hope that they make changes to their network and hardware so that we can enjoy the same internet experience that users from other companies can enjoy.  Until then, feel free to use T-Mobile but be aware of what you’re getting into.