[UPDATED][Guide][US] Using T-Mobile's ONE+ as a replacement for your home internet. (Now with real world test results) (+Alt. Comparisons)

[Xanthe_2871]

Hello there! This is an update to my original guide, showing new pricing and updates to T-Mobile's policies, as well as some results from an ongoing (90 days so far) experiment I've been running. 

 

 

First up is the pricing and other numbers. These are all based on my zip code (for Belfair WA), the top package for each provider, and assumes you purchase equipment up front. I'm not including cable in this comparison, because cable in major cities will be faster and cheaper than all of these, and small, local cable internet providers are different all across the country.

 

Speed:

Spoiler

HughesNet: 10 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up.

 

Exede: 12 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up.

 

DishNet: 15 Mbps down, up speed not indicated, but probably around 2-4 Mbps.

 

T-Mobile: Varies widely. On the low end, 4G LTE will be be 4 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up. On the high end, +50 Mbps down, +30 Mbps up. If 4G LTE is not available in your area, this plan is not for you. Personally, I get around 25 Mbps down and 15 Mbps up in Belfair.

 

Monthly Data Allotment:

Spoiler

 

HughesNet: 15 GB during the day, plus another 50 GB between 2 AM and 8 AM. Internet stops after cap is exceeded. 

 

Exede: 30 GB of high speed data, can be used any time of day, plus unlimited slower data for the remainder of the billing cycle once cap is exceeded. Speeds of slower rate vary based on current data needs of other users on the network, but will never surpass 5 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up.

 

DishNet: 50 GB of high speed data, can be used any time of day, plus unlimited slower data for the remainder of the billing cycle once cap is exceeded. Speeds of slower rate vary based on current data needs of other users on the network. No ballpark is provided on their website, but is likely in line with Exede. 

 

T-Mobile: 2 TB of deprioritized data. T-Mobile offers "Unlimited" 4G hotspot as part of it's One Plus International add on (But any line that uses more than 2 TB of data for 3 months in a row will be deactivated). Unlike Exede and DishNet, T-Mobile will only slow down your data if the users connected to your local tower is excessive, or your local bandwidth is limited. Exede and DishNet will slow down for everyone who's passed their limits regardless of available bandwidth. T-Mobile uses hundreds of towers, so you may very well find yourself experiencing full speeds if there are not many users in your area, you use the internet during off-peak hours, or your local available bandwidth is particularly high. And to clarify all tethered data on the One Plus International plan is immediately deprioritized. It doesn't start at 30, 32, 26 or any other number of GBs, those are for the phone's internet use and do not apply to the tethering data.

 

 

Monthly Cost: (As of May 2017)

Spoiler

 

HughesNet: $60 for first 2 years, then $80 a month. Requires $300 in up front equipment costs. As far as I can tell, there is no contract.

 

Exede: $150 a month. Add $5/month if you choose to use their wireless router, but you can also provide your own. No contract.

 

DishNet: $70 a month, but must be bundled with a TV subscription, so an effective $110 a month. Prices are for the first two years, after that it will increase, but the website doesn't say by how much. Requires 2 year contract.

 

T-Mobile: $95 a month. $70 for the base plan, plus $25 for the hotspot add on. You can add a second line for $50 if you want your smartphone to also get unlimited data, although there are some issues with that (such as video being limited to 480p and a 32 GB high speed data limit, then your internet might slow down under the same rules described for the tethering above). Requires a 4G LTE T-Mobile or GSM unlocked smartphone capable of producing a wireless hotspot, plus a router if you want to connect more than 5 devices, or have a wireless local network for things like Chromecasts, wireless printers, local file sharing, etc. You could easily buy all needed equipment for less than $200 if you don't already have it. No contract.

 

 

Other things to consider:

Spoiler

 

HughesNet is the cheapest and will work well for someone who doesn't use a lot of data. It does have a high start up cost though, with $300 in equpiment. This can probably be diminished by waiting for a promotion.

 

Exede is very expensive. I would avoid them.

 

DishNet is also very expensive and requires you pay for a TV plan you might not even use. 

 

T-Mobile ONE is not intended to be used in this way. You'll have a smartphone for a router. You'll likely need to turn the hotspot feature on every so often if the phone crashes or is programmed to turn the feature off after a certain amount of time. This will vary based on what phone you use. You'll also need a router in the middle of your phone and your devices if you plan on using more than 5 to 8, depending on the phone's hotspot capabilities. You need to have good T-Mobile service in your area, which you may very well not have. Also, T-Mobile will kick you off this plan if you exceed 2 TB in data usage 3 months in a row, or 5 months in a year. This is a very, DIY method of getting home internet, but it could save you a lot of money, since it could be much faster than the other options and give you considerably more high speed data, depending on the available bandwidth in your area.

 

 

My real-world test:

I tested using T-Mobile as home internet and have some interesting results. I set this up for 90 days so far in an RV for a friend of mine. This friend of mine normally uses HughesNet for internet in his RV, so this was a pretty good scenario for testing. For the test we used the following equipment:

 

A Moto X Pure (2015) was used for the hotspot. ($92 on eBay with cracked but working screen)

A Toshiba Satellite laptop, a HP Windows XP Netbook, a Nintendo Wii, two Xbox 360s, and a wireless HP printer.

 

The Premise: This friend of mine, Danny, lives in an RV with his wife, Trisha. They travel around the state and will even be visiting Canada soon, but not as of writing this. They don't use a lot of internet as up until now their inability to connect conveniently has meant finding offline alternatives. They don't own smartphones, but do use technology and internet sparingly. Danny uses the Toshiba laptop both on and offline while Trisha uses the HP netbook. 

 

I won't go into all the details as it would take way too long and be uninteresting, but here's the highlights: 

 

• The T-Mobile solution is cheaper, faster, and more convenient in this case
• I added this Moto X Pure to my existing plan which already had 5 lines, making it the lowest possible price for them of $55 (That's $20 for the voice line and $25 more for the tethering add on) but it would have been $95 if this were on it's own plan
• The coverage is not as good as the satellite, but the phone is still better for active travel as it doesn't require any specific orientation to work and will keep the WiFi network active while seamlessly switching towers in the background. Additionally if the 4G connection is lost for any period of time the WiFi (on a Moto X Pure at least) will remain active, just without internet, so any connected devices will remain connected but offline until 4G becomes available again.
• There is no local networking. Each device can use the internet but they can not communicate to each other. The wireless printer worked, but only when used in remote mode, as the printer and laptop just 10 feet apart could not "see" each other on the local hotspot network. A wireless printer without remote internet capacity would not have worked in this scenario.
• A stress test with both Xboxes and the Wii streaming Netflix, and both laptops streaming YouTube, things fell apart... it seems the most this setup could handle was 3 video streams at once, and that's at a max of 480p per stream as per T-Mobile restrictions.
• My friend and his wife will be keeping this setup for the foreseeable future as the convenience of having the network active at all times and faster than the satellite at most times far outweighs the downsides, including the annoyance of rebooting the phone once a day to improve overall stability (granted this may not even be a needed step, he does it for peace of mind.)

 

As for raw numbers, his best connection speeds were 85 Mbps down and 48 Mbps up (not in the same test), his average 4G speeds were 16 Mbps down and 11 Mbps up, and his average usage per month was around 50 GB.

 

As a conclusion I think it's safe to say that this can definitely work, and it may be the best option in certain situations, but it's not for everyone. My not-super-tech-savvy had little trouble working it after I set it all up for him, and with a good cell signal booster this could really give satellite a run for it's money, but there is also a lot that can go wrong. This is NOT sanctioned by T-Mobile, and a recent policy update stipulates that all devices with a tethering plan must primarily use their data on device (AKA people using 4.6 MB of on device data and 50 GB of tethering, even with a plan add on specifically for tethering are breaking the rules), although it as not yet been enforced on my account. Maybe with Verizon's new SmartHub T-Mobile will come out with something similar.

 

I hope you found this interesting. If you have any questions, or anything to add, feel free to comment below!

 

-Xanthe

[SCHISCHKA]

that sucks. iv been on 4G for two years. I pay $52NZD a month for 100GB but im locked to my local cell towers.

Normally i get better download but i think its low coz its 5pm. Pings are always high in NZ.

 

[Xanthe_2871]

2 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

that sucks. iv been on 4G for two years. I pay $52NZD a month for 100GB but im locked to my local cell towers.

Normally i get better download but i think its low coz its 5pm. Pings are always high in NZ.

 

Ping is a great point, and while I did not record the ping results from the original satellite setup I can say that the 4G speed tests were usually at a ping between 50 and 90, with the worst result being 208 on a single outlier test.

 

As for the speeds themselves it really can vary widely. Some people I have talked about with this online have claim to get speeds in the hundreds in major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles. But that's just not realistic across the country. Especially when 5G rules out if it incorporates small cells we're really not going to see much faster in situations like the one tested above.

 

Do you use 100 GB a month?

[combine1237]

I live 1000 feet from a tower in the middle of nowhere with it's own dedicated fiber line and and get ~40-70 mbps and ~30 up on my zte axom 7 all day long. Could I stream to twitch with this?

[SCHISCHKA]

12 minutes ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

Do you use 100 GB a month?

I usually use about 30 or 40GB. Some months I use up all the 100GB. Its a pre-pay deal so I can purchase another 100GB at any time. Sometimes at the end of the month I will download something off archive.org just to use up my data

[Xanthe_2871]

10 minutes ago, combine1237 said:

I live 1000 feet from a tower in the middle of nowhere with it's own dedicated fiber line and and get ~40-70 mbps and ~30 up on my zte axom 7 all day long. Could I stream to twitch with this?

Up or down? You could stream down at 480p or up at full speed, up to whatever resolution Twitch maxes out at. 

 

As for the plan, if you just wanted to test the waters you could add T-Mobile One Plus (no international) for $5/no and get 10 GB of 4G LTE data (prioritized below your phone but above the automaticly deprioritized one plus international plan) then 3G speeds after the 10 GB is used.

[combine1237]

1 minute ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

Up or down? You could stream down at 480p or up at full speed, up to whatever resolution Twitch maxes out at. 

 

As for the plan, if you just wanted to test the waters you could add T-Mobile One Plus (no international) for $5/no and get 10 GB of 4G LTE data (prioritized below your phone but above the automaticly deprioritized one plus international plan) then 3G speeds after the 10 GB is used.

You can turn off the 480p limit for youtube if it bothers you they have an opt out code you can dial.

[Xanthe_2871]

6 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

I usually use about 30 or 40GB. Some months I use up all the 100GB. Its a pre-pay deal so I can purchase another 100GB at any time. Sometimes at the end of the month I will download something off archive.org just to use up my data

LOL. I like the way you think! But a GB doesn't really cost your carrer anything... 

 

Don't get me wrong, your carrier does have lots of costs involved with giving you service, but the way it works out your per Gigabyte usage doesn't affect how much money they make. Really the best analogy you could make is any bandwidth you are using is bandwidth the cannot be concurrently sold to a different customer. But all things equal the actual amount of gigabytes you use doesn't affect how much profit they make off of you. 

 

As long as the carrier is making enough money from your bill each month to cover your individual portion of their costs to run business employing their employees and maintaining their Network the actual usage itself doesn't cost them anything.

[Xanthe_2871]

2 minutes ago, combine1237 said:

You can turn off the 480p limit for youtube if it bothers you they have an opt out code you can dial.

Do they? That's very interesting. The last I had heard for the one plus International tethering plan video is capped at 480p when streaming down but up streams and live broadcast coming from you are not limited. If you are correct then that would be a significant Improvement to the plan!

 

I have unlimited HD day passes on my main line because I signed up that line at a time when they were offering that, but my understanding is that brand new lines with one plus in National added today or not eligible for included HD passes at all. You would have to buy them one day at a time for $3 each.

 

On my unlimited HD streaming pass lines I can stream up to 4K without any issues if I have enough bandwidth and I'm not being deprioritized.

[combine1237]

Just now, Xanthe_2871 said:

Do they? That's very interesting. The last I had heard for the one plus International tethering plan video is capped at 1080p when streaming down but up streams and live broadcast coming from you are not limited. If you are correct then that would be a significant Improvement to the plan!

 

I have unlimited HD day passes on my main line because I signed up that line at a time when they were offering that, but my understanding is that brand new lines with one plus in National added today or not eligible for included HD passes at all. You would have to buy them one day at a time for $3 each.

 

On my unlimited HD streaming pass lines I can stream up to 4K without any issues if I have enough bandwidth and I'm not being deprioritized.

You need to disable binge on. The video data now counts toward your total data in the end, but if you have unlimmited are doing this tether does it really matter.

 

The link on how to:

 

https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-24294

[SCHISCHKA]

20 minutes ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

As long as the carrier is making enough money from your bill each month to cover your individual portion of their costs to run business employing their employees and maintaining their Network the actual usage itself doesn't cost them anything.

that is what my carrier is. they are a budget re-seller of spark NZ. They really exist to sell the surplus from the formerly state owned telco. In its previous incarnation as TelecomNZ they put 3G and 4G all over the country and they have too much so they formed a new company to sell the under-used sites at discount.