Forum Discussion

dennyb333's avatar
dennyb333
Roaming Rookie
2 years ago

5G Home Internet vs. phone data speeds

So I’m a Magenta Max customer and mostly happy with my service. We live in a town where the 5G can be very strong depending on time of day/which part of town you’re in. 
 

So I started considering switching my home internet to T-Mobile’s 5G Home Internet, and did some research. I turned off my phone’s wifi to run speed tests on my phone’s 5G data from inside my home. It varies a TON depending on the room and the time of day. I’ve seen download speeds as high as 300+ and upload speeds of about 6-8 (at the times you’d expect… late night or early morning) but as low as 6Mbps for downloads and 1 for uploads (during peak times). That lower number concerned me as I work from home during the day, participating in a lot of mandatory video calls. I can’t have my internet just disappear during peak work hours. A great price for home internet won’t matter if I lose my job because I can’t stay online on a Thursday afternoon.

 

So I went to a T-Mobile outlet to ask an employee about it. The kid told me the phone data speeds are worse than what I’d get with Home Internet because the wifi customers are “on a different tower.” I’m no expert on this stuff, but this sounded made-up to me, like he just wanted me to feel better so I’d buy something. But maybe someone who knows more can confirm if the T-Mobile employee was correct: Are Home Internet speeds better than what I get from my T-Mobile 5G device in the same building, and if so, is it because they deliberately use different towers for that service, as this guy told me? 
 

I should add that this kid was very obviously trying to get me to sign up on the spot, showing me 1000+ speed tests on his device (irrelevant to me because I don’t live at the T-Mobile store so my speed won’t be the same). So I protected myself by leaving without signing up for the trial service, although I am still considering it. 
 

So anyone with better knowledge than me - and with no stake in trying to sell me something on commission - what’s the real story here? Can I reasonably expect better speeds (and most importantly, no frequent drops in service while I’m working) then I get on a 5G mobile device from within the same residence? Thanks for any help!