The Xfinity app showed usage of the past 3 months: We used less than 40% each month, for about $80 USD a month.
No thanks! That cuts into the movie budget!
Before we save some money (about $15/mo), let's test how T-Mobile Internet unlimited data works for 2 weeks.
There are 15 devices for this test;
Smart TVs: 4
Laptops: 4
Printer: 1
Smart Home Speakers: 3
Game Consoles: 1
Phones: 1 (There are other phones in the home but they stick with data)
Other: 1
Total: 15
I made tables for 3 entries a day across 3 days to test the Xfinity service we have. Here's one;
Xfinity is pretty speedy - Download times are between 227 - 236 Mbps, Latency between 24.5 - 25.5, Jitter between 5 - 6.68, and 0 packet loss.
Let's quickly define the terms in the table;
Date/Time - The date and time of the data gathered.
Download (Mpbs) - How fast your network gets data.
Upload (Mbps) - How fast your network uploads data.
Latency
- Transferring of UDP packets. TCP requires every packet to be intact,
UDP doesn’t, but you still want as many as possible. Lower is better.
Jitter - Variation in RTT (Round Trip Travel of Packets) measurements. Lower is better.
Packet Loss - Packets lost in communication.
Passive Connections are smart speakers, televisions, things still connected to the internet but not actively streaming.
Active Devices are things that are connected to Wi-Fi and actively downloading/uploading packets of information.
Halfway through day 1 of data gathering, I forgot that we will be streaming; So I pulled up Amazon Prime with Wicked. Amazon Web Services hosts both their own streaming platform and Netflix, so I don’t expect a big difference in latency. It depends on where their Content Delivery Endpoints (CDNs) are. These are storage sites hosting media placed near populous areas, taking less time to reach you.
I learned that T-Mobile Hotspots get lower priority than phones do. If phones are hogging resources, your internet may suffer.
At the end of the first day, I remembered that T-Mobile Internet works through their phone towers, not networking infrastructure with a demarcation point (the barrier of responsibility for customers and ISP).
If I wanted to test a T-Mobile network handling multiple devices, I could connect them all to my phone's Hotspot.
That has less download and upload throughput capability than what T-Mobile Home Internet would provide.
A big test? Gaming; I play Splatoon 3 and Fortnite, real-time online games, on the Nintendo Switch.
I don’t play these often, and don’t have an active Nintendo Online subscription. The closest thing was playing Splatoon 1 online on the Wii U. Even then, those servers are 10 years old and not updated, who knows where the issue lies.
Setting Up The Device
It's a white box with a screen; First time I've ever seen a gateway with a screen, as remote access has been the name of the game for decades. It displays signal strength, amount of connected devices, and an Internet Line Number. The T-Life app, where you conduct setup and maintenance, has these things in greater detail.
There are no USB slots or button-connectivity features on the gateway or extender but there are Ethernet ports in the back of both. Keep that in mind!
Placement
The device works best by a window. This is good, but there would be one device that is far from the hotspot; Will this work with my wi-fi extender? In fact, it will, and it even comes with one - Access Point.
There is talk about "moving the access point closer to the gateway', but this house is fairly large. Any closer to the gateway minimizes the usefulness of it.
The T-Mobile extender didn't appear in my SSID (list of Access Points) initially. Thanks to Eric Silberman for reminding me about frequencies; This operates on 3 -
2.4, 5, and 6, which cover a wide ranges of distances (longer, medium, shorter) I don't know if that extends to the AP, but I think the AP takes the same name as the gateway, because the app says it is connected and operational.
Indeed, you can see the two devices and their connected devices. When I set up an Alexa device, it went to the gateway instead of the extender. Weird.
Sometimes the connection will drop at the very edge of the home. I have patchy connection when using my laptop outside, which is a big bummer! Let's troubleshoot.
When I install another, non-T-Mobile extender (NETGEAR), in conjunction with setting up the extender, you let the gateway know about the device by adding a new network in the app. Without this, a connection through the extender will not work.
I stumbled into that by curiosity, previous knowledge of networks, and going "what if?". The extender doesn't work consistently.
I contacted T-Mobile for another Access Point - I can get a free one sent. It won't arrive before the trial is over, so I moved the box again, and it works outside, and everywhere else!
Moving the box makes it much easier to test; With a traditional ISP box, you would need to detach the RG-6 coaxial cable and work to place the box nearby another cable and a power port. And that's before you call your ISP to get someone out there to activate the port.
With the T-Mobile box, you go "Hey, let me take 10 minutes out of my day to move and test this,".
App
You manage and configure it with the T-Life app. I wouldn't call it intuitive. I log in two or three times a day with a twenty-character password. The video advertisements on the T-Life app I see before I get to my internet are obnoxious.
Speed
With a speed test, the download speed through the NETGEAR extender is 87 Mbps.
Through the T-Mobile Internet gateway, it's around 125 to 165 Mbps.
(Remember; The T-Mobile extender does not differentiate from the gateway)
Both a far cry from 227 Mbps through Xfinity, 27% less, but there's no loss in load time.
Usage
Image-heavy websites took a refresh or two to load.
Streaming did work (YouTube, Vizio Channels). I streamed and live-streamed from two Vizio televisions at the same time (one playing Netflix, so directly from their AWS storage), and one from a live-stream on YouTube.
No skipping or lag, 108 Mbps download speed, 0% packet loss. 71.0 ms of latency, 17.7ms of jitter.
A few components needed hard line connectivity. Remember the two Ethernet ports on both the gateway and extender? These components attached to the extender, and work without issue outside of needing to reset other signal boxes unrelated to T-Mobile Internet. Nice!
A Signal call was hit or miss when I was right by the router, but the other person was in the wilderness. I call it a success.
My antiquated laptop struggles when it's 3 feet away, as does my refurbished phone, but smart TVs nearby have not faltered. Newer laptop works well from the furthest away. My things are old but very few laptops these days are 17.3", have a disc drive, and a num pad. I'm loath to change!
I don't have a smart home, but I think it could work if the home was small.
Recommend?
Yes. Take note;
- Be prepared to get more than one extender if your house is big or your devices scattered.
- Needing to place it by a window limits the usefulness depending on where your devices are placed.
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