3 ms·

Do they have plans to raise or eliminate data caps? 10-20GB caps just don't work for home internet.

djrogers 5y ago
Most carriers don't have hard 10-20Gb data caps anymore, and the fixed 5G services that are rolling out from T-Mobile and Verizon don't either. That data cap thing was very 2015, and I haven't seen one other than a tethering cap for a while...
- drewg123 5y ago
  Thank you so much for pointing this out. I'd given up on something like this ever happening. I have a colleague living in the northern California wilderness who maintains a point-to-point wifi antenna at the top of a 300' redwood tree because he needs to use a WISP rather than an LTE provider to get uncapped data. I just looked at these plans and they look like a dream come true for him.
- selectodude 5y ago
  And it's less of a tethering cap and more of a soft cap to stop egregious users. I tether pretty frequently on Verizon and have never noticed any slowdowns.
ghayes 5y ago
I have a T-Mobile unlimited 5G data plan. Not exactly inexpensive, but whenever my Wifi acts up, I simply turn it off and barely notice.
mdasen 5y ago
Home internet is a new business. T-Mobile already covers 30M households for home internet (around 20-25% of US households, https://www.t-mobile.com/isp https://www.t-mobile.com/isp). Verizon has a more limited LTE home internet program. T-Mobile is currently targeting areas where they have excess capacity, but their capacity will be growing a lot over the next year or two as they launch a lot of new mid-band spectrum. Verizon is also looking to launch new mid-band capacity, however that will probably be a couple years behind given that the spectrum isn't currently free and the fact that Verizon's new spectrum will require more towers for coverage. Still, wireless companies are looking at a lot of new capacity and looking to expand into home internet. Sometimes it's about the technology coming together at the right time to offer a new product. Think about the original iPod. Before then, MP3 players were either sad 32MB players that could only handle 10 songs or large and heavy boxes that weighed a pound and couldn't fit in a pocket. Then the 1" hard-drive came around and Apple shipped the iPod. Without the 1" hard drive, Apple couldn't offer a light-weight, pocketable music player with a 1,000 song capacity. Likewise, without new mid-band spectrum and new 5G technologies, it's very hard for wireless carriers to offer home internet without data caps. However, those new technologies come around and all of a sudden it opens new opportunities. T-Mobile has already started to use some of that new capacity. Their base plans include 100GB of premium data (deprioritized when the network is busy after that) and their new MAX plans have unlimited premium data (never deprioritized). The industry will be working toward home internet over the next 5 years, but it is a reality today for a lot of customers and that will start growing quickly.
- commoner 5y ago
  Verizon now offers 5G home internet in the few areas where mmWave is available. https://www.verizon.com/5g/home/ https://www.verizon.com/5g/home/
abawany 5y ago
The T-Mobile ISP plan doesn't have any caps afaik. Keep in mind that getting it requires a hard pull credit check. They do have other issues though (e.g. their modem selecting a sub-optimal band leading to poor service.)

Most carriers don't have hard 10-20Gb data caps anymore, and the fixed 5G services that are rolling out from T-Mobile and Verizon don't either. That data cap thing was very 2015, and I haven't seen one other than a tethering cap for a while...

drewg123 5y ago
Thank you so much for pointing this out. I'd given up on something like this ever happening. I have a colleague living in the northern California wilderness who maintains a point-to-point wifi antenna at the top of a 300' redwood tree because he needs to use a WISP rather than an LTE provider to get uncapped data. I just looked at these plans and they look like a dream come true for him.
selectodude 5y ago
And it's less of a tethering cap and more of a soft cap to stop egregious users. I tether pretty frequently on Verizon and have never noticed any slowdowns.

ghayes 5y ago

I have a T-Mobile unlimited 5G data plan. Not exactly inexpensive, but whenever my Wifi acts up, I simply turn it off and barely notice.

mdasen 5y ago

Home internet is a new business. T-Mobile already covers 30M households for home internet (around 20-25% of US households, https://www.t-mobile.com/isp https://www.t-mobile.com/isp). Verizon has a more limited LTE home internet program. T-Mobile is currently targeting areas where they have excess capacity, but their capacity will be growing a lot over the next year or two as they launch a lot of new mid-band spectrum. Verizon is also looking to launch new mid-band capacity, however that will probably be a couple years behind given that the spectrum isn't currently free and the fact that Verizon's new spectrum will require more towers for coverage. Still, wireless companies are looking at a lot of new capacity and looking to expand into home internet. Sometimes it's about the technology coming together at the right time to offer a new product. Think about the original iPod. Before then, MP3 players were either sad 32MB players that could only handle 10 songs or large and heavy boxes that weighed a pound and couldn't fit in a pocket. Then the 1" hard-drive came around and Apple shipped the iPod. Without the 1" hard drive, Apple couldn't offer a light-weight, pocketable music player with a 1,000 song capacity. Likewise, without new mid-band spectrum and new 5G technologies, it's very hard for wireless carriers to offer home internet without data caps. However, those new technologies come around and all of a sudden it opens new opportunities. T-Mobile has already started to use some of that new capacity. Their base plans include 100GB of premium data (deprioritized when the network is busy after that) and their new MAX plans have unlimited premium data (never deprioritized). The industry will be working toward home internet over the next 5 years, but it is a reality today for a lot of customers and that will start growing quickly.

commoner 5y ago
Verizon now offers 5G home internet in the few areas where mmWave is available. https://www.verizon.com/5g/home/ https://www.verizon.com/5g/home/

abawany 5y ago

The T-Mobile ISP plan doesn't have any caps afaik. Keep in mind that getting it requires a hard pull credit check. They do have other issues though (e.g. their modem selecting a sub-optimal band leading to poor service.)