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T-Mobile is expanding its Home Internet service nationwide. The broadband internet service will be available at every location in the US where the “Un-carrier” already has wireless coverage. This massive expansion will come through a new Home Internet Lite plan, which launches on August 16.
T-Mobile‘s full-fledged 5G Home Internet is a flat $50 per month service with no additional taxes, activation charges, or equipment fees. For that monthly cost, you get a gateway device and unlimited high-speed internet for your household. However, this broadband service isn’t available everywhere and is mostly limited to urban areas. It currently covers over 40 million Americans, only a third of which are in rural areas.
With Home Internet Lite, T-Mobile now plans to offer broadband internet to millions more Americans. This plan will also cost $50 a month but will come with a data cap. You only get 100GB of high-speed internet per month. Once you have consumed your allotted high-speed data, your speed will be limited to just 128Kbps, which is pretty much unusable. You cannot even make video calls at that speed, let alone watch YouTube or stream Netflix.
According to a Cnet report, this data limit and extreme throttling are because of infrastructure limitations. This expansion will bring its broadband service to areas where its network doesn’t have enough capacity to support unlimited high-speed internet. Since about 25% of American households use less than 100GB of data each month, Home Internet Lite would be ideal for them.
For those who need more data, T-Mobile will also offer higher-priced tiers. At $75 per month, users will get 150GB of high-speed internet. Likewise, 200GB for $100 a month and 300GB for $150. The company will notify you when you consume 80% of your allotted data. The notifications will arrive via email and on the router’s screen. If you’re a T-Mobile wireless customer, you will also get a text message on your phone.
T-Mobile will gradually expand Home Internet to more locations
According to T-Mobile, it gets requests from thousands of people every month to bring Home Internet to their location. Unfortunately, many of those requests come from areas where the carrier is not ready to offer unlimited broadband internet. Home Internet Lite will fill the gap until it increases capacity. Once the full service is ready, Lite users can upgrade to it at no additional cost.
If you’re willing to subscribe to T-Mobile’s broadband service, the company lets you check whether the full service is available at your address or you can only get Home Internet Lite. Note that you don’t necessarily have to be a T-Mobile wireless customer to use its home internet. But if you are already a customer and are on the Magenta MAX phone plan, you get broadband service at just $30 a month. This applies to both full Home Internet as well as the Lite plan.