Cellular home internet any good?

[Chapap]

I once had an AT&T unlimited hotspot as my home internet. No complaints on the service but being that it was a hotspot and/or an apple device, it made connecting a bit of a hassle. My wife was working from home during the pandemic and the company would not allow wireless connection, so I rigged up a router to spoof being a wired connection. I couldn't get it to act as a wireless router tho. Actually an incredible perk of it was if the power bobbled, I wouldn't have to wait for a router or modem to boot back up.

I'm buying a house with Xfinity cable and Tmobile cellular as internet options. An initial chat with Xfinity yielded that I cannot use my own equipment if I get an unlimited package: $55, 400 Mbps. Tmobile is offering unlimited at $50 for 33 Mbps. I could see Tmobile being much easier to deal with, and I have 5G in the area. Any thoughts on either?

 

[fastpakr]

I'd sure want to have a second conversation with Comcast/XFinity. I know of a number of people and businesses that provide their own equipment with them, though not necessarily with that specific package.

Unlimited cellular internet can certainly work, but it's a pain (especially if signal is mixed). If you have a wireless router that could connect to it and then bridge to its own household wifi network that might work better. Leave the cell phone near the window with the best signal and let the router connect to it/rebroadcast as needed.

 

[Chapap]

Comcast won’t play. I can upgrade to unlimited for 30 but that’s 20 more than renting equipment. They claim I can’t just throw their modem in the closet. They say it won’t work. Not sure about that part

 

[2011Supercab]

I use my own equipment with comcast/xfinity

Use approved third-party equipment for Xfinity Internet and Xfinity Voice

Find out if you're using an Xfinity-approved modem. View the entire list of approved customer-owned modems.

www.xfinity.com

 

[rubydist]

@Chapap - I think you would find 33Mbps to be painfully slow. I have the 400Mbps package and it typically runs more like 250 when you do an actual speed test. Its fine, but if it was 1/10th as fast I would be going crazy.

 

[Chapap]

@Chapap - I think you would find 33Mbps to be painfully slow. I have the 400Mbps package and it typically runs more like 250 when you do an actual speed test. Its fine, but if it was 1/10th as fast I would be going crazy.

It’s been a few years since I dealt with internet and everything I know seems to have been deleted from my brain. I just got 27 on an LTE test, so the att hotspot must have been similar and it was fine. I want to say the last time I had cable, I paid extra for the 3 digit package and didn’t really notice. I forgot all the good modem and router specs too. All we really do is stream and occasionally game. I’ll keep after Comcast. There shouldn’t be any problem using my own stuff… unless the new equipment they’re selling is monitoring us.

Edit: Looks like WOW is also available. That's going to be the winner I think. It's basically the same price (not counting included equipment with Comcast), but I'd probably pay extra for it just for them not being Comcast.