I live in Los Angeles County California, and the home internet is showing the different sites that I am in Las Vegas. This creates a problem from things like streaming YouTube TV, to access my local channels. Spent many hours with Home Internet (they act like they have never heard of the problem - yet I have seen some comment on this chat (doesn’t T-Mo monitor the chat room, (another question for another day))). It was suggested that I wire my personal router into the T-Mo router, and at first it appeared to work but then when I went to You Tube it showed location as Vegas again, An hour on chat with You-tube (this person appeared to know what they were talking about) and he finally said that You tube uses your IP address to determian where you have access and since my was saying Vegas that all they can do. Anyone have any suggestions on a work around, I would hate to go back to Spectrum to solfe the issue.
I can’t believe this is how cellular works. I am in Iowa but my computer says I’m in Minnesota. So when I sign in to my online banking, they always send me a notice of a log in from Minnesota as do some other’s and I have to answer of it was me or not. When I do a google search, it will take me to the site in Minnesota so I have to delete it and put in my correct address.
THis is a big annoyance when I’m paying good money for service. Additionally, I was not informed of this when I signed up with you. If not corrected, I will be changing servers and alert others to this problem
Believe it or not, that’s up to you. I’ve provided you with sufficient explanation and technical buzzwords whereby you can verify or disprove what I said. In the process of doing that you’ll educate yourself on how to counteract this behavior. If you want to start at the beginning research what an IP address is (and isn’t); from there move on to CGNAT (consumer grade network address translation) and how your public IP address is shared with other customers who may or may not be in the same geographic region as you are. An entire book chapter would barely be enough to explain all of the technical details involve with geo-location issues.
One thing is certain however; you didn’t sign up with me. I don’t work for T-Mobile. This is a peer-to-peer (i.e. customer-to-customer) support forum and not direct T-Mobile support. T-Mobile’s presence here is one of moderation to help ensure healthy exchanges.n
I do agree, however, that T-Mobile should make this better know up front and it should be included in its Open Internet Policies publication which is required by the FCC. You’ll find that link at the bottom of the page and might be surprised by some other things that weren’t disclosed except by a reference to that document in passing when you signed up with T-Mobile.
But I’ll stand by my suggestion to complain to those who are really responsible for this issue - content providers who rely on faulty geolocation database that use an IP-address for anything other than its intended purpose. Complaining to T-Mobile wont fix it and it’s not simply limited to T-Mobile.
BTW, does Verizon 5G Home have similar problems???????? I’d try it if it was available in my location.
This problem is worse than described, at least for me. When browsing to various websites, my location is determined to be one of a number of places. It may be either New Orleans, Orlando, or Jacksonville FL for many shopping sites such as big box stores, restaurants, and state government service. But various ‘geo-locators’ such as “iplocation.net” show it to be in Mobile AL. This causes problems such as inaccurate inventory and pricing, wrong ‘near me’ lookups, and as others have reported, denial of service because of wrong state!
Additionally there are similar problems as reported by others on this thread for sports apps/websites such as ESPN, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, etc. (Although I would appreciate receiving the “wrong” NFL games at times given I have no interest in the chosen local broadcast, the selected city has never been far enough to allow for an more interesting alternative.)
All of that and also video streaming and/or television services!
Come on T-Mobile! There has to be a solution to this. This is systemic to your network!
BTW, none of this makes sense to me. Since this is cell-based network connection, our location should be easily correctly determined. After all a cell-phone can be tracked to a physical tower, so surely a fixed location cell-based-gateway could also be tracked to a tower and that location be utilized for all geolocation requests!!!
I can’t believe this is how cellular works. I am in Iowa but my computer says I’m in Minnesota. So when I sign in to my online banking, they always send me a notice of a log in from Minnesota as do some other’s and I have to answer of it was me or not. When I do a google search, it will take me to the site in Minnesota so I have to delete it and put in my correct address.
THis is a big annoyance when I’m paying good money for service. Additionally, I was not informed of this when I signed up with you. If not corrected, I will be changing servers and alert others to this problem
I often get messages on my cell phone about verifying it’s me from banks and such. I think that is mostly 2-step verification, though, and doesn’t have anything to do with location. (The messages often do show I’m in another state, however.) There are only two websites I can’t fully access with the Chrome browser, due to location problems. My state lottery website is one. (You can only play online if you are in the state.) Since I can play using the Firefox browser, it’s no big deal. Although Firefox recently asked if I wanted to turn on VPN. Would doing so likely get me location problems with that browser, too? I know nothing about VPN.
I have same problem. I have NY cell # but live in Rhode Island. Using mlbtv app I had to turn on my Fios wifi in order to not get blacked out watching my Mets.Got rid of Fios and switched to TMO internet and no matter what I do my IP address shows me in NY on all my TMO connected devices in my home. Spent hours talking to TMO tech. They made same suggestion to connect a router to my TMO router but that didn't work.
More than just Sling. Connect a computer to it an all your searches will be wrong. Connect to Google Home. It freeks out. They tell me to get a vpn. T-MOBILE, YOU PAY FOR THAT. Don’t expect me to pay for something that is doesn’t function in the first place.
I often get messages on my cell phone about verifying it’s me from banks and such. I think that is mostly 2-step verification, though, and doesn’t have anything to do with location. (The messages often do show I’m in another state, however.) There are only two websites I can’t fully access with the Chrome browser, due to location problems. My state lottery website is one. (You can only play online if you are in the state.) Since I can play using the Firefox browser, it’s no big deal. Although Firefox recently asked if I wanted to turn on VPN. Would doing so likely get me location problems with that browser, too? I know nothing about VPN.
Without getting into technical details, a VPN essentially works in two ways: it conceals your true IP address and which obscures your location with those content providers relying upon IP address based geo-location; and it encrypts your traffic such that nobody can see it or modify it (including your ISP). Some folks have success with the location issues provided they are assigned a VPN server in their region but that’s not always the case. At the same time be aware that some sites block access altogether if a VPN is detected.
Since you do mention Chrome and Firefox, there is an add-in (or extension) called Location Guard that can be used to establish your proper location. It also works on Microsoft’s Edge. In all of these cases it can be successful provided the content provider (or site) relies upon the browser’s built-in java script API and not an inaccurate geo-location database service. The add-in is only available for desktop browsers at this time. It works on most websites for me using any of the browsers mentioned and saves me a lot of aggravation.
P.S. For me it’s always preferable to have banks and other critical sites perform 2 step authorization from a pure security perspective (although some allow turning it off at your own peril).
Thanks for all the info! I use a desktop all the time and use Chrome, Firefox and the Edge. I also don’t mind the 2-step verification, since I always have my cell phone right next to my PC.
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You yourself state that it doesn’t occur on your phone. That’s because your phone has GPS and content providers can rely on that rather than a 3rd party inaccurate service (unless of course you deny location permission to apps or web sites through your phone’s browser app).. Smart TVs don’t have GPS capabilities. Laptops typically don’t have GPS either.
The bottom line is that an IP-address is not a physical address. Prior to the advent of mobile carriers, some enterprising third parties figured out they could track IP addresses and correlating them with known physical addresses obtained from various sites that expose your physical location,through data collection, This hack quickly breaks down with both mobile carriers and satellite ISPs. However it was always considered close enough for horseshoes on wire-line carriers primarily due to how they could allocate IP addresses due to their physical infrastructures.
If you want it corrected, direct the complaints to content providers who continue to rely on 3rd party IP-address based geolocation databases that at best are nothing but wild guesses and some are wilder than others. Alternately choose content providers like YouTube TV that allow more flexibility in determining your proper location.
The only way this s truly resolved is with the introduction of GPS to all devices - but be careful what you wish for.
Ive been having the same issue for over a year. Even my bank sends me notifications after I sign in, that my location is incorrect. What’s the deal? It’s a hassle
Thank you for your reply. I have a chrome laptop and nothing can prevent this. I don’t think we should be charged as much for our service if we have to bother with changing our address when browsing, for example, google shopping and my banking institution and more. The thing is I wasn’t forewarned of this. Why is Tmobile not fixing this???
The explanation that “this is how cellular works” is a poor excuse. okay, I could understand if it good the exact address wrong, but this is ridiculous. It says I am in a different city and sometimes even state. And my phone on the cellular network does not do this. FIX THIS T-MOBILE
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