T-Mobile "Network Pass" 3 month free trial

[Redneck_Randy]

Done side to T-Mobile Internet, They don't offer email service.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Done side to T-Mobile Internet, They don't offer email service.

I don't believe any of them do anymore for new customers.

 

[comfortably_numb]

As part of the 3-month trial, you get access to T-Mobile Tuesdays. Today's promotion is $160 off a set of 4 Goodyear or Kelly tires plus a $25 mail in rebate.

I priced a set of 4 for my car and it came to an out-the-door price of $452, which is REALLY good.

Worth checking out if you have TMO and need tires.

 

[EarDemon]

As of yesterday AT&T is now officially doing 30 day trials. eSIM only, fruit phone only currently, Android eligibility coming next year.

https://about.att.com/blogs/2024/try-att.html

AT&T was just awarded the 4.9 GHz midband spectrum for FirstNet, once the buildout on that gets going as long as whatever flagship Pixel phone is out then supports it, I'm probably going to say bye-bye to T-Mobile as long as I can qualify for a personal line. That solves my mobile data problem. With T-Mobile's terrible and buggy offering of mobile hotspots, my only option for a data only line for travel and away from home use would be a CradlePoint, Peplink or similar WWAN router, which apparently you need a business account to use a real networking device instead of one of their gimped gateways.

With the higher tower density of AT&T, I'm hoping the shorter range of 4.9 GHz isn't an issue.

 

[EarDemon]

These days I either have 5G UC or no coverage at all. The 5G UC marketing is now more meaningless than it was before since as of earlier this year it now incorporates n25 + whatever magical bonding, instead of it just being the simple concept of 5G UC = n41. Here's some 5G UC goodness near the TN/AL border from yesterday, about 10 - 15 minutes outside of South Pittsburgh.

1500 miles into this road trip and T-Mobile's coverage is about what I expected. Great on the interstates, 1+ Gbps in major metro areas and completely non existant on the backroads of Kentucky, Tennessee and the S. Tenessee/N. Alamaba/N. Gerogia tristate area once you are away from Chattanooga.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Once my TMO trial ends, I'll be primarily using my $25/mo plan from Total (Verizon). I'll also have a 2GB for $10/mo plan from TMO on my 2nd esim as a backup. One added benefit is acess to T-Mobile Tuesdays. So, both networks for $35 a month. The Total Wireless plan has unlimited priority data, so I doubt I'll be using the TMO plan much, but it's nice to have it for certain occasions. I believe it also gives access to WIFI on major airlines.

 

[comfortably_numb]

As of yesterday AT&T is now officially doing 30 day trials

I'm currently trying this out. Getting speeds of about 800mbps on "5G+"

 

[EarDemon]

That's pretty good from what I've seen from AT&T. Do you know if you are connecting to both DoD and C-band when getting those speeds or just one or the other?

Do you know how far away you are from the site and how much speed is lost when you get farther away? Based on my experience with T-Mobile and Verizon, at 3.45 GHz and 3.7 GHz I would expect over a gig when outdoors and very close to a tower, but I don't really know much about how AT&T is configuring their network. With T-Mobile, speed over distance has been improving with a n41 and n25 combo from what I've seen in my travels

Anything of note when on low band n5 at 850 MHz? T-Mobil's n71 is impressive, but and I will repeat this over and over, the tower density kills the service for me.

 

[comfortably_numb]

That's pretty good from what I've seen from AT&T. Do you know if you are connecting to both DoD and C-band when getting those speeds or just one or the other?

Do you know how far away you are from the site and how much speed is lost when you get farther away? Based on my experience with T-Mobile and Verizon, at 3.45 GHz and 3.7 GHz I would expect over a gig when outdoors and very close to a tower, but I don't really know much about how AT&T is configuring their network. With T-Mobile, speed over distance has been improving with a n41 and n25 combo from what I've seen in my travels

Anything of note when on low band n5 at 850 MHz? T-Mobil's n71 is impressive, but and I will repeat this over and over, the tower density kills the service for me.

I'll continue to do tests and post results here. Will be in DC on Friday, then Ohio, then Chicago before I come back to KC on the 27th. I should have lots of opportunities for good tests.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Results from a test at home just now. Note this is "5G" band n5 and not "5G+"

Less than 1000 ft from the tower.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Anything of note when on low band n5 at 850 MHz?

Yep, as noted in my above post, n5 gives speeds topping out around 350/60 which is plenty for phone use, and also fantastic for my ATT Internet Air home broadband. Sure beats the 50/10 DSL we had here until a few months ago.

 

[EarDemon]

Thanks!

That result is what I would hope for on low band 5G at -95 dBm and maxing out at 350 x 60 is very respectable.

My concern is not so much for phone use, but for mobile hot spot use. Having lower latency and decent upload is huge when I'm at a hotel and connecting to my home VPN and uploading photos and such to my NAS. For phone use while driving/en route, just would need enough bandwidth for decent use of Waze and Google Maps and service to make voice calls if I need info on an event or attraction. I don't travel to cities, so mmWave is not a concrearn, decent midband with a stong lowband backbone in rural, semi rural and areas off an interstate is what I care most about the most.

 

[comfortably_numb]

5G+ less than one mile from KCI Airport

 

[comfortably_numb]

ATT n5 in the Southwest terminal at DCA. Not very impressive-

T-Mobile UC

Total (Verizon) UW wins this one by a longshot. Fastest ping, DL and UL speeds.

 

[zippyfrog]

Thanks for posting these so we can see what is going on. I have T-Mobile Home Internet and it greatly exceeds anything AT&T DSL can do (I currently still have my AT&T DSL and it maxes out at 28 Mbps down). This is a little bit lower than normal, and the upload is quite a bit lower than normal, but this is more than enough for what I need to do.