If you can afford the upfront cost, get service from The Calyx Institute instead. Uses T-Mobile, you own the device, cheaper in the long run, free VPN, and you’re supporting a privacy nonprofit.
Wow this is really interesting
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The lack of Ethernet on these make me think they’re meant for mobile, as opposed to home Internet. How has your experience been using it?
It’s WiFi, so it works with anything. If you had a huge home, it wouldn’t be enough, but for a small home, it’s fine. In the city, I got 150 Mbps, but out in the country I only get about 40.
It’s unlimited, and I’m not entirely sure what priority it’s given. I just think its a better alternative supporting a better company than T-Mobile itself.
T-Mobile home internet forbids traveling with their device, but this travels easily. Plus you own it. The only thing you’re not allowed to do is take the SIM card out and put it in another device. I’m not exactly sure why, but you can read about it on the Calyx site.
Having Calyx service let’s you downgrade your phone plan to something very cheap if you plan to carry the device around or if you don’t use much data when out and about.
It is 100% a better alternative than supporting T-Mobile, thank for for sharing it.
They added a statement from T-Mo:
This is a fair usage policy, not a data cap. We don’t have a data cap. Customers still get unlimited data even if they use more than 1.2TB in a month (over 2X the average user – less than 10% of our customers). They’ll just be prioritized after other home internet customers for the reminder of the bill cycle, and they may notice slower speeds compared to other home internet customers in times of congestion. This ensures that a ll of our customers get a great network experience. At the start of the next month, those customers reset to normal prioritization until the next time they hit 1.2TB. – T-Mobile
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I’ve had their home internet for over two years now and I don’t think this policy bothers me. It is our backup/alternative to crappy 20Mb DSL. It works well enough, but during [traffic] rush hour it gets congested from a nearby highway. To be expected and overall I have no complaints. I can stream 4k youboob just fine. I don’t think I get near or over the cap, but just in case I think I’ll keep P2P/Usenet traffic on DSL.
i thought the home gateways were already on the bottom tier of priority to begin with.
This really sucks. We used it for a little bit as a wonderful solution during a brief stay in a tiny ADU. It was a terrific experience and we’ve recommended it to anyone who might benefit from it.
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Same, it’s been as good or better than the $80/month service by cable. And considering it’s over the air, 1.2 TB still seems like a lot.
