Finally, after several years of waiting, I now have an internet connection somewhat better than old DSL. Yes, I was stuck 26Mbps DSL. It was fine for watching a streaming TV show, and browsing the internet, but that was it. Downloading large files would bring the connection to it’s knees, and the cries from the living room made you reconsider your decision.
There was some hope a few years ago with Star Link, but when it finally became available in our area, I thought it would be better a bit longer to see what other options might appear in the Edgewood area. The prices that Starlink wants is a bit high and of course you’re in bed with Elon Musk, so the whole Star Link thing kind of stunk. There is fiber access in parts of Edgewood, but it’s currently only available on the northern side of old route 66. The company providing fiber access to Edgew2ood is one of those highly-subsidized, rural, tiny, telecom utilities, and apparently they’re in no hurry – no telling when they might make it available on my side of Rt. 66.
There was the possibility of getting xFinity cable internet. which would be a reasonable solution, however xFinity on line shows that they don’t service my address. Well, they do service Edgewood, it’s just my my street name doesn’t match the one shown by certain geo-databases such as Google Maps. Google Maps thinks Derecho Ct (which is the street name we use and is what’s printed on the our physical street sign) is Derecho Dr. This cause problems for some companies, and I just didn’t want to haggle on the phone with their customer service reps. Besides, Comcast (which own xFinity) is famous for being shitheels and milking their customers with hidden fees and such. By the way – Bing maps does show the correct name for Derecho Ct in Edgewood, so score one for Microsoft.
I kept on looking, hoping, and finally luck came my way in the form of T-Mobile their 5-G Home internet package. I blinked. The specifications seemed, on paper, a bit better than Star Link, and the price was better.
Starlink
| SERVICE PLAN | STANDARD (FIXED) | PRIORITY (FIXED) | MOBILE (MOBILITY) | MOBILE PRIORITY (MOBILITY) |
| AVAILABILITY | ≥99% | ≥99% | ≥99% | ≥99% |
| DOWNLOAD | 25-100 Mbps | 40-220 Mbps | 5-50 Mbps | 40-220 Mbps |
| UPLOAD | 5-10 Mbps | 8-25 Mbps | 2-10 Mbps | 8-25 Mbps |
| LATENCY* | 25-60 ms | 25-60 ms | <99 ms | <99 ms |
T-Mobile 5G Home
Speeds Provided with Plan
- Typical Download Speed72-245 mbps (5G)
- Typical Upload Speed15-31 mbps (5G)
- Typical Latency19-37 ms (5G)
So far, so good. T-Mobile looks to be faster and cheaper as well. I can live with that. $50 dollars a month for unlimited data with no with no caps, with a 5G gateway and a second Wi-Fi 6 mesh unit. No equipment fee or rental fee. No contrast that for that against $120 a month and you gotta pay $349 for the satellite modem.
Well the equipment arrived today, just three days after I ordered it and it took me all of about 10 minutes to get it set up. Naturally, I wanted to test it to see if the internet speeds attained were anywhere near the advertised speeds and so I fired up the famous OOKLA Speed Test app on my tablet and let ‘er rip. Let’s just say I’m impressed – It hit 349Mbps down and 29Mbs going up. Better than advertised! T-Mobile, we have a winner! They are rolling it out and are offering up deals to get new subscribers like $150 back or a new 40″ Amazon fire TV. Not sure how long they’re gonna stick with these deals, but if your looking, now’s the time to bite.
Now, to go about the house and change all our devices over to the new internet connection.