Verizon "mobile" home internet

[bpaikman]

EVERY time I go to the Verizon store, they try to tempt me with some new toy or new service. This time it was home Internet.
They sent us home with a box to try their home internet for free for 30 days. I've been dissatisfied with our current cable service. Supposedly Verizon can match or beat our current speed.
I can also take the box with me when we travel. It can't be used while moving, but when we're stationary we can plug it in and have supposedly better Internet than using my phone hotspot or another hotspot.
We'll be on the road for about 2-1/2 months this fall, and stationary much of that time, sometimes up to 30 days.
I have a hard time justifying the expense of pepwave or whatever, but I do love my internet. Thoughts? Experiences?

 

[Russellvh]

We have the T-Mobile 5-G “home” internet. Have had it for about 5 months and 5 states (Texas north to Iowa). Netflix, Prime, Paramount+ and other streaming services.

Love it. $50.00 month, unlimited. Couldn’t quote numbers or strength but I haven’t had buffering or outages. Most viewing in evening.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

What do you think? Lousy Verizon service is my reason for moving over to starlink. The fact that with this plan you're low priority would have me giving this product offering 3 thumbs down, but you are the customer!

 

[bpaikman]

We have the T-Mobile 5-G “home” internet. Have had it for about 5 months and 5 states (Texas north to Iowa). Netflix, Prime, Paramount+ and other streaming services.

Love it. $50.00 month, unlimited. Couldn’t quote numbers or strength but I haven’t had buffering or outages. Most viewing in evening.

You mean you take it while traveling to those states? Or you moved several times, and kept the service?

 

[bpaikman]

What do you think? Lousy Verizon service is my reason for moving over to starlink. The fact that with this plan you're low priority would have me giving this product offering 3 thumbs down, but you are the customer!

Agree, but we're not heavy streamers when we're traveling (we've never used the TVs in our RV). I'll ask a lot of questions of both Verizon and Comcast - I'm wondering if it might be worthwhile to use only for trips, and could it be suspended when not traveling.

 

[Russellvh]

You mean you take it while traveling to those states? Or you moved several times, and kept the service?

We are full time RV’rs. This sits in our RV living room. Unplug on travel days (1 day about every 2-3 weeks) then plug it in at next camp site.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

Agree, but we're not heavy streamers when we're traveling (we've never used the TVs in our RV). I'll ask a lot of questions of both Verizon and Comcast - I'm wondering if it might be worthwhile to use only for trips, and could it be suspended when not traveling.

This is what I have sitting in the corner of my screen room!

If I had that black box in the corner of my living area, I would be using it to hold papers from blowing in the breeze.

If you're looking for something that works wherever you go, listen to the video again! All it takes to kill the joy is one block. When Verizon told me I had Verizon coverage where I was staying, and there remedy was to offer more minutes, when I hadn't used any of the time I had paid for, because of the bad coverage In my location (checked the locals opinion not mine), I realized corporations lie!!! I hate paying 150USD for good service, but I find it easier to shell out 150 for service, than the 120 USD spent for priority service with Verizon, and to listen to them lie to me about there great nonexistent service available in most areas I frequent in az.

I get it!!! 150 is a lot of cash, it literally breaks my bank at this time, but I have an avenue to get help if I need it. All I am telling you is, listen carefully to the above video while pondering another claim of another cell service providers toy...

We can get technical about starlink service. We can talk about how they are changing offerings, and changing fees. But when the smoke clears, we come back to the one reason we gave starlink a try!!! Bad overall cell service!!!

 

[stuartmparks]

Careful, 'rumors' are floating that Verizon has started to crack down on using the service outside of the contracted service area.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

Careful, 'rumors' are floating that Verizon has started to crack down on using the service outside of the contracted service area.

Try again, that makes no sense!

 

[stuartmparks]

The Verizon Home Internet plans are unlimited, so they verify that the local cell towers have enough capacity to meet the added demand of offering 5G home internet service. That is why the service is only offered in specific zip codes (where they have excess capacity). If you take it on the road and connect to an overburdened cell site, you could potentially impact cell phone users (Verizon's priority business/money maker). Moving the service/location is against Verizon’s published terms of service. Verizon could lock out your device or terminate your access and account.

Does that make more sense?

 

[DennisT]

The above is correct.

We keep getting emails from Verizon to sign up for home internet.

Looking through the terms it is tied to the address you sign up using and any address other than that must go through the “move” process.

TMobile had not cared but there was a rumor that they were starting to notice their home internet moving around. Nothing definitive but the rumor was they were going to start cracking down on it as well.

Too bad FMCA could not reach an agreement to keep TMobile as a provider. We had them while it was available and had a 600 meg connection while in Florida.

 

[stuartmparks]

Just saw on Reddit that TMobile has another 'flavor' of Home internet service - TMobile Internet Lite.
"For homes that aren't yet eligible for our unlimited T-Mobile 5G Home Internet service, we offer data bucketed plans starting at 100GB that can be used on the T-Mobile 4G LTE or 5G networks without being tied to a specific location."
This plan has bucketed data plans (150 GB, 200, and 300) so it is not unlimited and may not work for full-timers.

T-Mobile Internet Plans | T-Mobile 5G Home Internet

Learn about T-Mobile's Internet Plans.

www.t-mobile.com

 

[Kevin D Pem]

The Verizon Home Internet plans are unlimited, so they verify that the local cell towers have enough capacity to meet the added demand of offering 5G home internet service. That is why the service is only offered in specific zip codes (where they have excess capacity). If you take it on the road and connect to an overburdened cell site, you could potentially impact cell phone users (Verizon's priority business/money maker). Moving the service/location is against Verizon’s published terms of service. Verizon could lock out your device or terminate your access and account.

Does that make more sense?

Yes it does! To the uninformed, non user like myself, what you said previously made no sense.

So those looking for answers to the old problem of lousy service on the road, may find using this system may, or likely will at some point will compound the problem!!! Your bringing this information to your RV family has done them a great service!!! Thanks for the information!!!

 

[Kevin D Pem]

Just saw on Reddit that TMobile has another 'flavor' of Home internet service - TMobile Internet Lite.
"For homes that aren't yet eligible for our unlimited T-Mobile 5G Home Internet service, we offer data bucketed plans starting at 100GB that can be used on the T-Mobile 4G LTE or 5G networks without being tied to a specific location."
This plan has bucketed data plans (150 GB, 200, and 300) so it is not unlimited and may not work for full-timers.

T-Mobile Internet Plans | T-Mobile 5G Home Internet

Learn about T-Mobile's Internet Plans.

www.t-mobile.com

Unless T mobile has expanded a lot sense I last used them there coverage In more remote locations is, well let's just say, as bad as Verizon is where I am planted right now!!!

I used to look for a pie in the sky cell service. I spent a lot of money with no gain. Starlink is the best virtually everywhere service bar non.

 

[DHudson]

All I can say, is the Verizon data plan I use, which is suppose to be (Business Unlimited), SUCKS in the worse way!
Could be where I live, but even in the DFW area, we get piss poor reception for data. The ONLY reason I still use Verizon is that I use their "One Talk" app with cell phones in my business. I am looking for a replacement and Verizon will be history.

 

[DKRITTER]

We have fiber at home so we speed test in the 700-900 range.

We signed up a couple of weeks ago with Verizon Home with speeds of up to 300 It actually runs from 10-50 during normal times of day. We are going to stick with fiber at the house.

We are going to the Kids house this week and will test Verizon Home there if it's good there we'll keep it if not return it.

I'll let you know.

 

[bpaikman]

I did some more digging. Here's what I learned: if you have a verizon box, and take it with you (as we have, and plan to do, when we're staying at least 2 weeks in a couple of places), and Verizon detects that the box has been moved, they might cut service to it.
If so, we'll revert to our jetpack. They'll only cut service to the box, not your phone, etc.

 

[DKRITTER]

......, when we're staying at least 2 weeks in a couple of places), and Verizon detects that the box has been moved, they might cut service to it.........

I'd like to get a bit more information on this. We are about to take off for August to Colorado.

If possible could you reference this or maybe elaborate a bit.

 

[bpaikman]

I'd like to get a bit more information on this. We are about to take off for August to Colorado.

If possible could you reference this or maybe elaborate a bit.

i'll try to keep this brief. We have been using a Verizon box at our house for a couple of weeks and it works fine. Does everything we need to do - 2 smart TVs, and runs our various devices fine.
Son is an occasional gamer, and it seems to work for him, but he does think it's a tiny bit different from our former "boost+" cable internet that I recently cut.
I got a second box to test it on our trip. We will be staying in one place for a month and I'm hoping it will work for us.
If I understand correctly Verizon considers these boxes home Internet service. Instructions say do not move this box and I think they mean using it as a mobile internet.
The worst case scenario is that they'll detect that this box 'belongs' at our home in Texas, but is being used in Colorado, and...cut service to that box. However the Verizon people at the store assured me they would only cut service to that one device.
i'm thinking that home Internet devices like this get "priority". Verizon gauges how much Internet they need for an area based on business and home Internet first, and mobile devices like jetpacks (secondary). So they can't have 'home internet' boxes popping up randomly.
The people who are using pepwave must be getting the Internet from a different source - satellite? The place where we are going has several towers on the nearby mountain but last year I thought it was barely passable service on my phone hotspot. I'm hoping this box might give me better service.
I would not recommend it for moving around.
i'm reluctant to invest in the pep wave stuff because, due to some possible changes in our life, I don't know how much longer we'll be rv'ing.
I bet some folks on this forum can better explain how Internet is sorted out to users.
One YouTuber said that you get lower priority using the box, but that doesn't bother me because I already was getting mediocre service at this place where we stay in the summer, and if the box is worse I'll just go back to my jet pack.