t-mobile Home Internet - Location Issue

This is how cellular internet works just like a cell phone. The local towers connect to a backend that could be a long distance from your physical location. As for YoutubeTV, you just update your location using your YoutubeTV mobile app and it will use the GPS of your smartphone to identify location. I assume you are trying to set the location on a streaming device so just follow the onscreen instructions that tell you to open the mobile app. I have both TMO Home internet and YoutubeTV and using the YoutubeTV mobile app to pinpoint location works fine.

My device is Apple TV and I also used Amazon FireTV Stick before Apple. Both YoutubeTV apps allow you to update your location and when you do, it will tell you to open your mobile app so it can use GPS. You cannot type in your zip code.

That's not always true, I live in the state of Montana and I'm picking up stuff from Sacramento California, I have Roku TV and I went and reset the ZIP code and all that on my TV nothing happened I still get from California. I called these people up three times they said since my IP address is out of California there's nothing you can do they suggest I go buy a new router to work around it , this is total , I will not recommend T-Mobile's internet service ever they're they take their internet box 

Not defending TMO since they should be able to better explain this phenomenon by themselves... but this really is the fault of content providers that rely on IP-based  geolocation databases. In a wired world they are accurate but with mobile and satellite technologies your location can be very far away from your network’s point of presence, as noted by Cali Cat above. There’s nothing in an IP address that identifies your location accurately - the only location that is 100% certain from your IP address is your country (unless using a VPN).

Content providers that rely on  GPS based location are generally accurate but even then there are ways to fake them out or spoof (giving you more flexibility) but not all devices have GPS capability and methods as described buy Cali Cat for YTTV may be available from your content provider.

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. 

You appear to be very mellow with the IP location issue.  I'm into my third month of T-Mobile 5G Home Internet.  My real world location is Lebanon, Missouri (Missouri Ozarks Salem Plateau).  My IP location switches from Chicago, IL, Denver, CO and sometimes Independence, MO.  It appears my IP address changes/renews every 12 hours.  This wrecks havoc on streaming services and secure login sites, like my bank, Walmart, Lowe's, etcetera.  Trusted device keeps changing with the IP address. Didn't bother me untill I attempted to access our Secretary of State's website in regards to the midterm elections.  I was denied access for being out of state.  Yeppers, not a happy camper anymore!

We have been having the same problem with the geo-location for the Nokia gateway being incorrect for about 6-8 weeks now. When we added internet back in July 2022, it was working well without any problems. Now, we keep getting an IP address from Altanta, GA (eastern time zone), but we live in Nashville, TN (central time zone).  We first noticed this when our clocks and weather settings kept messing up on all our devices. When watching TV through the Roku, we started getting Georgia election commercials and Atlanta news/weather feeds instead of for Nashville. Very frustrating.

Now, this is affecting the clocks on all our connected devices such as computers, tablets and Echo Show devices that we use as our alarm clocks. I keep having to reset my clocks and alarms to the Central Time zone which will only work for a while.  Extremely frustrating.  Is there anything that T-mobile can do to fix this?  If not, we might have to go back to paying more for AT&T fiber.

The person that marked this as solved it an idiot. The issue is with the lease time of 12 hours. Your public IP can change every 12 hours. The server that hands out or assigns the IP (DHCP server) to the gateway can assign an IP that is owned by T-MOBILE from the ENTIRE network and not just the network segments that a reflective of your geographic location. This is means the towers are not segmented into geographic segments, but just in network segments that can pull an IP for anywhere in the country. I live in Kansas but my home internet is choosing a Denver, Co or a GA location for me. Who is the person that designed this?

T-Mobile’s solution to me was to set a static IP, but I would have to convert to a business account. I have no idea if this is going to cost more money monthly, but it better not, as I will just cancel and go back to the cable company that provides this for free as part of the standard setup.

 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!!!

Same issues as above. VPN’s can be tricky and troublesome, but for the 95% of the time it works for me I can live with that. T-Mobile Home Internet has had me show up in Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and even China. So, you can imagine what comes back on web pages I was using. I am north of San Diego. My solution was to fire up the VPN and set it to only use a Los Angeles based server for an IP address.

Thinking about using one of my Asus routers and setting up the VPN on it, so all the stuff using the wi-fi will use that LA based VPN server for a WAN IP address, it would hand out the LAN IP’s. Speeds will slow down, higher latency and longer pings. Just not sure if the slower speeds are worth the trade off for sites and services not liking the VPN? Google results is one that gives a failed connection results when using my VPN. If I could count on T-Mobile for decent Home Internet, it would not be an issue to use a slower VPN through a router to handle DNS and obtaining local IP addresses. Without the L.A. VPN getting results in Spanish is a pain, my Spanish is very limited T-Mobile and images don’t translate!

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

This doesn't work with Sling TV.  It goes exclusively off your ip location

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.