Verizon vs TMobile 5G vs Fiber Internet access

[icuker]

We're finally ready to drop cable (expensive) and want to look at other options. in our area we have verizon (which is what we use for our cell phones - extended family plan), TMobile (a friend has one and likes it - we'd use it about the same as they do), or I'm On service with Fiber Optic. There may be others but these are the three I've heard about. My son is a gamer and just got I'm On last week, and is much happier than what he had. My wife and I are just regular TV watchers, internet surfers, though I do work from home every other week, so need it to be reliable for my job.

Also, how does it work switching email accounts?

Anyway, what are your thoughts, critiques of these systems?

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by icuker

We're finally ready to drop cable (expensive) and want to look at other options. in our area we have verizon (which is what we use for our cell phones - extended family plan), TMobile (a friend has one and likes it - we'd use it about the same as they do), or I'm On service with Fiber Optic. There may be others but these are the three I've heard about. My son is a gamer and just got I'm On last week, and is much happier than what he had. My wife and I are just regular TV watchers, internet surfers, though I do work from home every other week, so need it to be reliable for my job.

Also, how does it work switching email accounts?

Anyway, what are your thoughts, critiques of these systems?

Email and your network are different matters unless you have an email account from your ISP that doesn't have an option for continued use. If that is the case you can still migrate a mail box to a new one. Some ISPs let you forward to a new address for a fee.

The wireless broadband can work really well and also not. I use it extensively for ISP backup and alarms. Some of our work from home staff have taken offer/deal/packages from T-Mobile and Verizon. It mostly works well but folks who use VPN to office, do some gaming, and other TCP vs UPD (connection vs connectionless Internet) applications don't have the same reliability.

There's also a you get what you pay for element. That's not just in the media type for your service, but for cellular it can be the modem. What T-Mobile and Verizon give you in a home bundle is often $ 1/4 to 1/2 the price of the professional grade Ethernet modems.

Your type of 5G makes a difference. You can count on more if you are near what your phone typically calls the 5G ultra wide. Drill into the two firms' coverage map to see the type of service where you live.

I don't say don't do this. Just know you get what you pay for, and wireless will have some imperfections good wired (can be fiber) will not have.

Changing wired ISPs can give you savings and better performance too. Fiber will likely come from the LEC (has local monopoly) vs CLEC (competitive) ISP/Telco choice.

[TheGITM]

I went fiber (Google) several years ago and it's been fantastic. I also keep a 5G mobile device on hand that I can activate when traveling. I can also use it as a backup in the event of a service outage (which has only happened once in the few years I've been on fiber).

I don't have any issues with my setup. It just works. I couldn't say that in the past with any of the cable company services (and I've had several over the years).

[Rumblefish]

I consider 5G Internet suitable for only the lightest Internet use.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Rumblefish

I consider 5G Internet suitable for only the lightest Internet use.

To be fair, you should probably explain what you mean here. In my earlier post I did mention that all wireless can have occasional hiccups for TCP vs UDP (persistent connections) but personally and professionally I do serious or heavy duty stuff with 5G cellular. This is at some scale, and even for failover on site primary connections. Most of my afternoon was working with two laptops connected to a Verizon 5G phone because it was faster and more reliable than my ISP.

[icuker]

I can check with my friends on whether they have any issues. The wife works at the same place I do, so would have a similar situation as mine as far as doing remote work.

[Rumblefish]

Originally Posted by imwjl

To be fair, you should probably explain what you mean here. In my earlier post I did mention that all wireless can have occasional hiccups for TCP vs UDP (persistent connections) but personally and professionally I do serious or heavy duty stuff with 5G cellular. This is at some scale, and even for failover on site primary connections. Most of my afternoon was working with two laptops connected to a Verizon 5G phone because it was faster and more reliable than my ISP.

Most 5G cellular internet delivers average download speeds of 100 mbps. My cable internet is 1200 mbps. I’m glad you’re able to work with a 5G connection but that wouldn’t work for my needs. My ISP is pretty reliable though.

[LAPlayer]

Originally Posted by icuker

We're finally ready to drop cable (expensive) and want to look at other options. in our area we have verizon (which is what we use for our cell phones - extended family plan), TMobile (a friend has one and likes it - we'd use it about the same as they do), or I'm On service with Fiber Optic.

I had to look up ImOn as it only appears to be located in a small part of Iowa. No way to compare something I've never heard of except their 1 Gig. price looks like $90/mo which I find expensive.

I use a high-speed cable as primary and I have the Verizon 5G Home Internet & 5G Wifi. The Verizon is $45/mo, unlimited and provides over 200mb download, which will depend on the 5G tower you are connected to, and I can pack it up and travel on the road with it. My brother has the T-Mobile version and it also works great. It works the same, or better, than any cable I've had including my GFiber 1 Gig. and it's portable.

[Bob Womack]

I was wooed over from Cox to Verizon a few years back and I did my due diligence asking representatives how the various services would be covered by them. The day the technician did the installation he walked us through how to connect up and get going. I asked him about how to port over my wife's and my email to one of the ten emails that came with the plan and he looked at me as if I had suddenly grown antlers. Now, this is after I left my provider and went with them. He said, "We don't offer email services to new subscribers." I said, "We've gt a problem because I was told I get ten email addresses with this plan." He apologized, called a customer service rep, and got confirmation that I couldn't get email through them and that I was expected to go with Google mail. I wasn't about to do that. I dragged them across the coals, in the middle of which I was informed that I would have to have an email address so that they could contact me. The upshot was that I had been sold a bill of goods and there was no way for them to fulfill their promises. I extracted a discount out of them for the first year.

All the while I was aware that I had email services available through my website host. As soon as we got off I went to my website provider and learned how to set up emails for myself and my wife, and did so. Now, it is a pain in the backside. Now it is a pain because there are no spam services or such (I use my virus protection for that) and my website address isn't easy to type into an email address in on a smart phone, but we get by.

So, no email through Verizon, folks. If you've got a iPhone use can your your Apple email address.

Bob

[LAPlayer]

Bob, I don't understand this. My email has never been provided through my WiFi provider. The consequence of that is when you leave a TV/Communication platform like Cox Communications Xfinity or AOL or..., you can lose your email access unless you can access it through Yahoo (which is where COX moved all their email) or other early (now almost obsolete) providers. I believe all Cox email switched to Yahoo so you would have to have changed it anyway. No?

[Gordon Currie]

Fiber beats everything else in terms of low latency, symmetrical speeds (download and upload being equal), and general bandwidth.

The only reason to ever go with 5G/cellular is mobility. Not a big advantage for the home.

Fiber does not suffer from degraded speed/quality as local peak usage increases in the same way that cable and cell networks do.

Pro Tip: Get a free Gmail address. Use that as your emergency email address. Google's spam filtering is pretty effective once you learn to use their tools and feed them spam messages to train the system.

Always have a backup email in case your ISP-tied email has problems.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by LAPlayer

Bob, I don't understand this. My email has never been provided through my WiFi provider. The consequence of that is when you leave a TV/Communication platform like Cox Communications Xfinity or AOL or..., you can lose your email access unless you can access it through Yahoo (which is where COX moved all their email) or other early (now almost obsolete) providers. I believe all Cox email switched to Yahoo so you would have to have changed it anyway. No?

I was on Cox until I left.

Bob

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Rumblefish

Most 5G cellular internet delivers average download speeds of 100 mbps. My cable internet is 1200 mbps. I’m glad you’re able to work with a 5G connection but that wouldn’t work for my needs. My ISP is pretty reliable though.

There are distinct types of 5G, and the common phenomenon of fixed broadband service advertising the fast often 300 Mbps or better is marketing crap without a QOS (quality of service) agreement few will pay for. A fast connection between your site and a switch or head location in the neighborhood can't get the overall performance most need across the Internet. It can be sufficient if edge computing is present and that's it.

It might not work for your needs, but you are doing a disservice or possibly misleading people if they have a location where the top tiers of performance are available.

If someone is in a tough location where fixed (wired) and what the ISP offers for wireless are not working well they can also get better hardware. For example, an Ethernet cellular modem instead of the low cost but often sufficient gear the popular carriers give you. The hardware popular carriers have for first tier or business products are typically $1100 - $1800 vs 1/4 or 1/3 that for home.

[Dogma]

I have email through the company that hosted my business website. Once the business was sold I had to procure a new domain name (not difficult, fees periodically, not terribly $$) and then set up a new account with the hosting company. A hosting account comes with some number of email boxes (5? can't remember) and you do not actually have to have a website. This company has extremely robust security protocols and I have had no problems with intrusions. When I had the business I did have a window when I was getting a lot of annoying spam but I was able to access the web portal for the email server and set my filters specifically to target this. The problem ceased almost immediately. I have had one instance where I was unable to communicate via email with someone whose internet service in a rural area did not meet the security protocols my company requires. While somewhat inconvenient in that single instance, I did feel like the protection could be beneficial overall.

The company I use is called Laughing Squid and it is a small company out of San Francisco. I pay 8 or 9 bucks a month for my account (which could include a website or blog if I wanted to have such). I have been with this company for 16 years all-told - business and personal. The domain name costs around $100 for 10 years (GoDaddy)? Something like that. I had an additional gmail account for the business for some purpose, and the amount of unsolicited crap that came through that account led me to the "you get what you pay for" belief in this aspect of life.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Dogma

I have email through the company that hosted my business website. Once the business was sold I had to procure a new domain name (not difficult, fees periodically, not terribly $$) and then set up a new account with the hosting company. A hosting account comes with some number of email boxes (5? can't remember) and you do not actually have to have a website. This company has extremely robust security protocols and I have had no problems with intrusions. When I had the business I did have a window when I was getting a lot of annoying spam but I was able to access the web portal for the email server and set my filters specifically to target this. The problem ceased almost immediately. I have had one instance where I was unable to communicate via email with someone whose internet service in a rural area did not meet the security protocols my company requires. While somewhat inconvenient in that single instance, I did feel like the protection could be beneficial overall.

The company I use is called Laughing Squid and it is a small company out of San Francisco. I pay 8 or 9 bucks a month for my account (which could include a website or blog if I wanted to have such). I have been with this company for 16 years all-told - business and personal. The domain name costs around $100 for 10 years (GoDaddy)? Something like that. I had an additional gmail account for the business for some purpose, and the amount of unsolicited crap that came through that account led me to the "you get what you pay for" belief in this aspect of life.

Those folks and Web Hero (was catalog.com) do a good job for domestic hosting.

More and more it is a tough financial choice when for as low as $5 a month a Microsoft tenant also offers a big suite of software with that. Beyond basic product with Apple now gets email domain hosting. You also don't need to buy a cert if you go with a 365/Azure tenant.

A Google WorkSpace tenant is also a good choice choice and now they're much less expensive such as some $6 a month when it all used to be much more.

After many years of liking those firms we're probably moving my business and family to a Microsoft tenant because of the total suite of applications.

Verizon also just upped cellular smart watch to $10 a month when the last time we shopped that and superior coverage made sticking with them less expensive than a T-Mobile switch.

It is all such a bother but time to shop and maybe move some things around. For sure if I retire this summer.