T-Mobile has offered their 5G Home Internet service since around April of 2021. In that time, they’ve gone through roughly 5 or so gateways (even more for business customers), all of which are designed to connect to the T-Mobile network over 5G.
One key point about cellular-based home internet is tower capacity. Many potential customers have seen that their address is eligible for Home Internet one day, wait a month before deciding to pull the trigger, and find out that it’s no longer available. That’s because the area they’re in has had enough signups to “max out” their local tower.
A recent decision by the company could be an attempt to free up some space in these over-subscribed areas.
Freeing Up Capacity… Or Something Else?
According to a document shared with us here at The Mobile Report, T-Mobile has now deactivated Home Internet lines that showed no usage on the associated gateway assigned to that line.
Apparently, there are customers out there with lines of Home Internet service that are “without an active gateway”. These customers could, potentially, be paying for a service they’re not using.
If this is the case, the decision to cancel these lines are doing two things, both of which are positive. First, it’s freeing up the capacity of the nearby tower to allow for someone else to sign up. Secondly, it’s stopping a customer from having to pay for something they’re not even using (or may not even be aware they have).
Another, more concerning way this could be interpreted, is that T-Mobile is targeting customers who are using custom third-party gateways with their Home Internet SIM card.
Some customers with T-Mobile Home Internet have found that the gateways provided by the company simply aren’t good enough for their needs. Third-party gateways, often with handy features like band locking and external antennas, are often swapped in.
This isn’t approved by T-Mobile, so it could be the company is using this as a way to force customers back onto the provided gateways.
That being said, we don’t personally think that’s the case. Most third-party gateways offer “IMEI Spoofing”, where a customer can enter the unique identifier of their T-Mobile gateway to make it seem their third-party one is legitimate.
It may be in a bit of a legal gray area, but it’s a feature that would, effectively, convince the cell network that the device connecting is actually T-Mobile’s gateway, and it’s a feature we believe most third-party gateway users are using.
As far as we know, this isn’t detected by T-Mobile. In fact, we’re in contact with a few people that are doing this exact trick and not only have they not had their line cancelled, they never received the warning email either.
Another potential impact could be to customers who purchased a T-Mobile gateway second-hand. Many customers prefer the newer G4 gateways due to their external antenna hookups, and may have purchased these units online on sites like eBay and inserted their SIM into the device. In this case, the IMEI of the device wouldn’t match the one T-Mobile has on record.
Who’s Affected?
The most likely customers that are affected by this action are simply people that purchased Home Internet and never set it up. They could’ve been sold on a “bundle” that included the Home Internet, and they simply took the offer even though they didn’t need it.
Adding to that, it may also impact customers that were, let’s say, creatively sold to.
We’ve covered how some stores, especially third-party ones, have a history of “cramming” unwanted services on to a customer’s bill.
It’s not out of the question that a customer could be out there with a line of Home Internet service on their bill that they have no idea about, nor were they given an internet gateway for. Cancelling those lines of service is, therefore, a good thing all around.
Important Dates
As the document states, customers impacted by the decision should have already had their lines of service cancelled already.
The warning emails went out on December 9th, and lines were cancelled right before Christmas on December 23rd.
If you were somehow affected by this change, you can reach out to T-Mobile to have your service restored. Oh, and leave a comment explaining why such a thing happened in the first place, because we’re curious!
