We’ve always liked the idea of home internet based on 4G/5G, and T-Mobile steadily expanded its service to cover “40M homes” last month, according to the company.
Yet, T-Mobile is ready to expand its Home Internet Service to the whole country or wherever it has a working wireless network with a slightly different service called Home Internet Lite.
That said, there’s a caveat because the Lite internet service comes with usage caps. It’s because it’s more akin to a large phone data plan than a proper “Home Internet” plan as people imagine them.
The full-speed access has caps of 100/150/200/300GB depending on how much you pay ($55/$80/$105 and $155). Based on the capacity, this is pretty expensive, and it’s not clear what the download/upload speeds are.
That said, depending on your location and needs, it might be enough for (very) basic Internet usage. To give you some context, a 720p zoom call uses 1GB per hour, according to zoom. Full-HD streaming from Netflix uses 3.1GB per hour.
If you go above your data cap, the connection won’t stop, but it will significantly slow down to 128 Kbps, reminding you of 2002 wireless modems. That’s terrible speeds you typically get while roaming abroad, for free.
Clearly, T-Mobile’s Home Internet Lite isn’t as great as the $50, no caps, standard T-Mobile Home Internet. That said, it might make sense if there’s nothing better around. As 5G coverage grows, there’s an excellent chance to go from Lite to standard Home Internet.