Editor’s note, September 2024: This article was written in 2022, when our writer did his first tests. We’ve updated it to reflect current prices and speeds and added additional links to articles published since then. Otherwise, it remains largely unchanged.
I decided to embrace the future, starting with my internet at home. I dumped my Spectrum cable internet and television services for the overhyped next generation of wireless: 5G. The new technology is being touted as a solution to many problems, but one of its early successes is providing competition to companies like Comcast Xfinity, Charter Spectrum, Altice is optimal, AT&T And Verizon Fios.
By trying it out for a few weeks T-Mobile Home Internet And Verizon 5G home internetboth showed promise for eventually replacing my home broadband. But neither proved reliable enough to keep today, so for now I’m switching back to a more targeted home Internet provider.
This is what I learned.
The Verizon 5G Home internet box.
How to Compare Verizon and T-Mobile
While neither provider officially offers 5G home internet services in my building, both providers have exceptionally strong 5G coverage in my residential area New York City.
On Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network, I can often find download speeds of over 200 Mbps (and sometimes over 300 Mbps), an impressive connection that can easily meet all the gaming, streaming, and work needs of myself and my two roommates .
Uploads, at least in the early days of my usewere about 20 Mbps, or similar to my Spectrum cable connection.
T-Mobile, which has its 5G Ultra Capacity available where I live, has recently achieved similar download speeds in my region – a more recent development that gives me confidence that the carrier is still actively working to strengthen its network, even in areas where it has already deployed a lot of 5G.
The T-Mobile connection has also become more responsive, often offering lower latency and faster upload speeds, regularly exceeding 40 Mbps. That’s double what Verizon’s 5G and my 400Mbps Spectrum plan offered.
Both carriers charge $50 for their 5G home internet offerings, and those prices include taxes, fees, and a modem/router in the monthly cost. Neither has data limits, and both offer discounts on monthly service if you also have certain wireless plans. T-Mobile drops the price to $30 per month if you have the most expensive Magenta Max plan. Verizon drops the price to $35 per month if you have a Play More, Do More or Get More wireless plan.
Compared to traditional broadband options, this could quickly add up to serious monthly savings, even without the wireless bundle discounts.
Setting up both is also incredibly simple: take the modem/router device out of the box, place it near a window and plug it in. No technician visit is required.
T-Mobile modems are equipped with screens, so you can immediately see whether the area where you have placed your device has good coverage, without having to go to apps. Verizon’s box is more minimalist, relying on an LED light instead. If it’s white, you’re good; if it is red, you should move it to a new location in your home.
Personally, I prefer T-Mobile’s functionality to Verizon’s form, even if the former’s gray cylinder is a bit of an eyesore. The carrier also offers a black box version of its router/modem, which does have a screen but doesn’t look any more stylish.
Both providers have allowed me and my roommates to stream 4K content, play online games on Xbox, make Zoom and FaceTime calls, and otherwise live our lives normally.
So why go back to a more traditional connection? Inconsistency.
Strong coverage does not always mean strong performance
While both providers provide excellent service in my area, using both systems caused us to experience random, intermittent periods of internet loss. My first week with Verizon was excellent, but by week two the speeds and latency became so erratic that I had to switch.
T-Mobile’s offering shined more often than not, but it also went out randomly while watching the Grizzlies-Warriors game on a Saturday night on YouTube TV or while trying to work on Monday or Tuesday morning. A quick reset of the modem and my connected Eero got us up and running again, but unreliability is an issue.
In fairness to both carriers, I understand that my situation is a bit unique.
Verizon offers Fios in my area and therefore 5G Home Internet is not officially available where I live. If you want Verizon internet and have the option for Fios, it will send you there quickly. Because the Ultra Wideband network has improved so dramatically, the company sent me a device to experience the network and the 5G Home Internet product, even though the service is not technically available in my exact location.
Interestingly enough, Verizon’s 5G network in my area has been significantly worse in recent weeks for both 5G home internet and traditional phone connections. Things have since returned to normal, with some speed tests of my iPhone 13 Pro Max on Friday showing download speeds over the 5G network of almost 400Mbps.
Verizon says there was a “backhaul issue” on the cell tower closest to my apartment, which may have caused some of my problems in the second week. A second cell tower near my building may have been blocked by construction in the area, which could have exacerbated the problem.
The carrier says that the first problem has now been resolved.
T-Mobile’s 5G device is in a similar boat. I signed up for the product when I lived a few blocks away and it was available at that location. Even though I’ve only moved six blocks since then, my new address isn’t technically listed as an address for T-Mobile Home Internet.
I’m still paying for the modem and it still works and connects to T-Mobile’s faster mid-band 5G network. This might explain some of the problems I had with speed. After troubleshooting the provider, I noticed a solid performance boost, with download speeds regularly clocking between 300 and 400 Mbps on Friday. But it doesn’t fully explain why the modem would completely clock out at random intervals.
“Home Internet is not available to every home today, and that is intentional,” a T-Mobile spokeswoman said in a statement to CNET when contacted about these issues.
“To ensure a great experience for everyone, we allocate access to Home Internet sector by sector, from home to home. And we only offer it in places where we can ensure there is enough network capacity to deliver a great network performance for all our customers – wireless and broadband – both now and in the future, with a predicted increase in data usage.”
Fair internet speeds via Wi-Fi were impressive.
A millimeter wave solution
My new provider is a company called Honest Networks, a startup founded in 2018 that ironically delivers broadband directly to buildings in the New York area using millimeter wave or higher frequency wireless airwaves, which is an option for 5G.
Carriers, most notably Verizon and AT&T, heavily touted millimeter wave in their early 5G deployments, and Verizon continues to offer 5G Home Broadband over millimeter wave in some markets today.
To be fair, it charges about $50 per month, but because it uses millimeter wave and a dedicated network, gigabit-like upload and download speeds are touted. This is a significant jump compared to the mid-band 5G networks I experienced with Verizon and T-Mobile’s respective home broadband solutions.
For reference, if I got a wired gigabit connection from Verizon for Fios, it would cost me $90 per month, while Spectrum would charge me $80 per month.
Other companies like it Starry sky have similarly used millimeter wave to offer home internet alternatives in cities across the country. However, unlike midband 5G, this version of 5G is much more limited in range and availability and companies like Honest and Starry must actually install equipment in the specific buildings they provide services to so that the connections are accessible.
My apartment complex is one that supports Honest, although the setup and installation was similar to a traditional cable or fiber optic process. We arranged an appointment through the company’s website and had a technician come out for a few hours to connect us. Since the building is wired for the service, I don’t have a traditional modem and just plug my router into an Ethernet port on the wall.
Although it took a while to get going, once up and running its performance quickly dominated the options from Verizon and T-Mobile.
Download speeds over my legacy Eero network were often comparable to the 100-400 Mbps I saw on Verizon and T-Mobile, but uploads were consistently above 300 Mbps. (I’ve been trying to install an update to my Eero that’s supposed to improve “performance” and “stability” but for some reason it keeps failing.)
Most impressively, latency measured on Speedtest.net and Fast.com is consistently less than 5 milliseconds, even over Wi-Fi. That’s a more responsive network than the one even my Spectrum cable connection offered.
Since I’ve had a good experience after new installations of all three services, I’m not going to get too far ahead of Honest just yet. But that consistent, super-low latency, even over Wi-Fi, is certainly one of the most encouraging numbers I’ve seen yet and makes me optimistic that this flavor of 5G might really beat my traditional, wired cable options.
