5G home internet comparison: T-Mobile vs Verizon

5G home internet competition in the US is heating up and providers like T-Mobile and Verizon are offering some big incentives to attract customers. Follow along for speed, pricing, and fine details for each provider in our 5G home internet comparison.

Update 9/22: T-Mobile expanded the availability of its 5G Home Internet to 64 new cities across six states this month. The Uncarrier previously said it was available in for 45 million homes and this pushes that to 54 million.

Meanwhile, earlier this summer Verizon made 5G Home Internet $25 for mobile customers and did the same for Fios and LTE Home plans too.

Background

It’s been about a year since Verizon and T-Mobile launched their 5G home internet services and they’re both building momentum.

T-Mobile 5G home internet is now available for over 50 million households and Verizon said earlier this year that its 5G home internet is available for over 20 million.

While Verizon upped its incentives with deals like 50% off for existing customers, T-Mobile announced its own similar promotions.

AT&T doesn’t have 5G home internet, but it does offer a 4G home internet for rural customers and businesses. While it lags far behind Verizon and T-Mobile across the board, we’ll include it in the comparisons below for reference.

5G home internet comparison: T-Mobile vs Verizon

Speeds

Verizon offers the fastest potential speeds for both downloads and uploads, while T-Mobile‘s service is more widely available.

With both, keep in mind that your average 5G speeds will vary based on your location and coverage. And yeah, AT&T’s 4G home internet is abysmally slow.

One more detail, to get access to the 300-1,000 Mbps download speeds with Verizon, you’ll need to pick its 5G Home Plus plan.

Pricing, setup, fine details

Both T-Mobile and Verizon are offering very affordable pricing, particularly for customers who bundle an eligible cellular plan. That brings T-Mobile’s 5G home internet down to $30/month and Verizon’s is even cheaper at $25/month.

Even if you don’t have your smartphone service through either of them, the plans are still affordable with T-Mobile and Verizon both at $50/month with autopay.

AT&T’s offering is not only more expensive, but much slower, has a data cap, and requires a $99 installation.

Incentives

Both T-Mobile and Verizon have a tempting list of incentives to get customers to leave traditional broadband providers.

Both make it free to switch by covering up to $500 in early termination fees, have free trials, and are throwing in extra perks like free streaming devices and streaming services.

Verizon is offering its own Stream TV set-top box for free while T-Mobile is offering $50 that can be used for any streaming device including Apple TV.

5G home internet comparison wrap-up

With T-Mobile and Verizon both working hard on compelling 5G home internet service, consumers benefit from affordable pricing, free trials, no contracts, and more.

Hopefully, with the launch of more C-band 5G coverage this year, we’ll see AT&T officially enter the 5G home internet space which will bring more choice and competition.

At this point, if you’re unhappy with your broadband provider, doing a risk-free trial with T-Mobile or Verizon’s 5G home internet is easy, and you can even try it out alongside your existing internet.

It’s hard to say if there’s a clear winner between T-Mobile and Verizon. T-Mobile gets points for greater availability and a lifetime price lock. And Verizon is ahead with a cheaper price for bundlers and faster overall speeds.

But if you already have one of the carriers for your phone plan, it makes sense to do a trial with that one first.

Check out if T-Mobile or Verizon‘s 5G home internet is available in your area.

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