I rarely watch television, but the wife does, so we only have an antenna that receives local over the air channels. We had Cox Cable for television and internet for years. We ditched the television part 5 years ago and only had internet with Cox. The Internet worked well for the most part. A couple months ago Cox raised our internet bill by $9.00/month. I decided to look to an alternative.
Right before Christmas we went to T-Mobil and switched from Cricket cell phone service to T-Mobil and got two new phones as our old phones did not work well with T-Mobil, even though they were supposed to be compatible. The new phones were basically free, as they are pro-rated on a monthly basis and as long as we stay with T-Mobile for two years, there will be no cost for the phones. There is no contract, but if we were to decide to leave T-Mobil the remaining balance would be due for the phones.
T-Mobil offered as a special unlimited voice and data plan for the two phones for people 55 and older @$70.00 per month and their Home Internet Service for $25.00 per month, both with guaranteed price lock for life.
It gets complicated, but there was a billing issue with the first month’s billing, so I got on the phone with T-Mobil and after a 30 minute phone call was able to resolve the billing issue and they dropped our monthly bill for both phone and internet service from $95.00/month to $85.00 per month locked in for life. (I was not nasty, but firm in my displeasure about the billing) Squeaky wheel gets greased.
The phone service has worked great and same with the internet service. The internet speeds are running between 250 megabytes per second to 400 megabytes per second, which is comparable to the speed we had with Cox.
One of our daughters has T-Mobil Internet, but is not receiving the same speeds we are. Her speeds are much lower, but she is still happy with the internet service.
The T-Mobil Home Internet is normally $50.00 per month, which is what our daughter pays.
When I called Cox Cable to cancel our service the rep. offered me $49.00 per month for Internet to stay with Cox. I told the rep, if she could match T-Mobil at $25.00/ month locked in for life I would consider staying with Cox. Cox would not match.
We are with CREC rural electric and they are installing fiber optic which will be available to us in the next couple years. We might consider going with CREC Fiber Optic Internet, even though it will be more costly than T-Mobil Home Internet.
To sum up, T-Mobil Home Internet might be worth looking into. Your results may not match our results.
I was glad to dump Cox. For many years they were the only option we had.
Right before Christmas we went to T-Mobil and switched from Cricket cell phone service to T-Mobil and got two new phones as our old phones did not work well with T-Mobil, even though they were supposed to be compatible. The new phones were basically free, as they are pro-rated on a monthly basis and as long as we stay with T-Mobile for two years, there will be no cost for the phones. There is no contract, but if we were to decide to leave T-Mobil the remaining balance would be due for the phones.
T-Mobil offered as a special unlimited voice and data plan for the two phones for people 55 and older @$70.00 per month and their Home Internet Service for $25.00 per month, both with guaranteed price lock for life.
It gets complicated, but there was a billing issue with the first month’s billing, so I got on the phone with T-Mobil and after a 30 minute phone call was able to resolve the billing issue and they dropped our monthly bill for both phone and internet service from $95.00/month to $85.00 per month locked in for life. (I was not nasty, but firm in my displeasure about the billing) Squeaky wheel gets greased.
The phone service has worked great and same with the internet service. The internet speeds are running between 250 megabytes per second to 400 megabytes per second, which is comparable to the speed we had with Cox.
One of our daughters has T-Mobil Internet, but is not receiving the same speeds we are. Her speeds are much lower, but she is still happy with the internet service.
The T-Mobil Home Internet is normally $50.00 per month, which is what our daughter pays.
When I called Cox Cable to cancel our service the rep. offered me $49.00 per month for Internet to stay with Cox. I told the rep, if she could match T-Mobil at $25.00/ month locked in for life I would consider staying with Cox. Cox would not match.
We are with CREC rural electric and they are installing fiber optic which will be available to us in the next couple years. We might consider going with CREC Fiber Optic Internet, even though it will be more costly than T-Mobil Home Internet.
To sum up, T-Mobil Home Internet might be worth looking into. Your results may not match our results.
I was glad to dump Cox. For many years they were the only option we had.
T-Mobile billing is straight up weird, but it'll settle down and make sense after the 2nd month.
As for their internet service, it's completely dependent on your location to their 5G towers. Use Cellmapper's website or app to find if you have a tower within reach. The closer the better, but if you have a somewhat clear line of sight to a tower it'll probably work up to 3-5 miles away. If you do it's a great service. Reasonably priced and no data caps. If it doesn't work there's no contract. I especially like it because there's no equipment rental charges and all the BS .gov fees are included in the cost. I'm paying a flat $40 a month since I'm on autopay and have a T-Mobile phone bundled with it.
I've got towers all around me and it switches around by design to equalize load. Some towers are faster than others due to distance and frequency bands. I'm kind in the center from all of the ones around me and don't get a super strong signal from any of them but I still get 50-150 down speeds generally. It's crazy to think they can move that much data over radio.
I seldom watch TV but I do spend a lot of time on the Internet using a desktop computer rig. Cox has been my ISP for years, and at $40/month, the 'Essential' level on their Internet tier, via cable modem, serves me well even for streaming. I also use an OTA antenna for local programing which gets me all the major channels in the OKC area.
When I moved to where I now live I tried AT&T for cell service but found that I was in a 'dead zone' even though their cell tower is only about 2 blocks from my apt. Ended up switching to T-Mobile and could not be happier with their $15/month 'Connect' prepaid plan that gives me unlimited talk/text plus 2Gb data (still more than I need). Unfortunately, I can't get their Internet fiber at my address.
When I moved to where I now live I tried AT&T for cell service but found that I was in a 'dead zone' even though their cell tower is only about 2 blocks from my apt. Ended up switching to T-Mobile and could not be happier with their $15/month 'Connect' prepaid plan that gives me unlimited talk/text plus 2Gb data (still more than I need). Unfortunately, I can't get their Internet fiber at my address.
@Shadowrider : Our T-Mobil tower is about 3 miles away, so we get good connection and speeds. My daughter lives in Edmond in an apartment complex and her speeds are a little over 50 mps. She says that many of the people in the apartment complex have T-Mobil Home Internet that slows speeds down. I have noticed during peak times our speeds slow from around 400 mps to 250 mps, so I am guessing the more users connected the slower the bandwidth. Even so T-Mobil internet is working well for us.
One other thing, the rep at our local T-Mobil store told me they are upgrading their towers and should increase speeds over time.
One other thing, the rep at our local T-Mobil store told me they are upgrading their towers and should increase speeds over time.
We got OEC firer about a yr or two ago, it has been great, but that was THE only option for internet short of Hugh's net or a local guy who was absolutely awful and only like 3 =down load if it was a good day, and constant outages and he was always out of town
Yes I could see how a sizable apartment complex connected up would affect it. Now that you mention it I have a complex to my north that could be grabbing the bandwidth from the tower closest to me. Hadn't thought of that.
That tower is less than a mile as the crow flies from me. But I have a building and a highway overpass right smack in the way of it. It still connects and gets me decent speeds. It often bounces to another tower straight to my south that's over 2 miles away and I get about the same signal strength. I got 437mb down one night very late with only two bars on signal strength which is considered low strength. So you have to kinda ignore that meter. I've never got more than 3 bars and it's no faster when I do which isn't often.
The little Nokia gateway they use is actually pretty good and when they say to try several different placements in your home they mean it. They are pretty sensitive. Even rotating it around on it's base can improve your signal enough to get you a substantial increase in speed. T-Mobile is definitely a legit internet option if you are located where it'll work for you.
Just spoke with ATT and it sounds like they’ll have fiber in my area in the next 2-3 months. I’m sure they’re just the lesser of two evils but I’ll do pretty much anything to avoid sending Cox another dime.
I loathe AT&T but got sick of Cox's price increase and issues. With AT&T I got 3x the speed at a 30% reduction in cost. Actual tested speed is usually about 400Mbps when I pay for 300, so that's nice.
