Home Internet from T-Mobile began as a beta back in 2019 with 4G LTE connectivity. As 5G expanded, the company switched to 5G gateways and fully launched in April of 2021. For most of that time, the company offered a single plan that included unlimited data and a free gateway rental.
Then in April of 2024, T-Mobile added a new Home Internet Plus plan. It included the same unlimited 5G internet but with a guaranteed G4AR gateway and included a bonus mesh unit for better WiFi coverage.
Now, there are 3 brand new plans that are replacing the previous ones for new customers, and there are some interesting differences between them.
The Plans
Rely
The first, and likely to be the best fit for most customers, is the “Rely” plan. The plan is meant to provide reliable 5G home internet (hence the name) at a great price. The plan costs $50/mo on its own or $35/mo with any voice line, assuming you have autopay enabled, and comes with a “fast” gateway. It’s also worth noting that this is the only of the three plans that will charge a $35 “Device Connection Charge”.
Amplified
Second is the “Amplified” plan. For an additional $10 per month, customers are guaranteed a “faster” gateway and get access to “Advanced Cyber Security”. This is apparently a set of extra safety features like malicious link blocking and a mysteriously named “anomoly detection” feature, all controlled via the T-Life app. Business customers also get one mesh access point with this plan (but not the consumer version).
All-In
Finally there’s the “All-In” plan. For $70/mo standalone or $55/mo combined with any voice line (again, with autopay), customers get all of the above plus the same mesh node that the original Plus plan gave (two mesh nodes for business customers).
New this time, though, is a free Hulu (with ads) subscription and a free Paramount+ Essential plan. The Hulu won’t be new to some of you, but this does mark the first time T-Mobile has offered Paramount+ as a steady plan perk.
Price Lock is… better?
There’s one big change with the new plans that should be commended.
T-Mobile seems to have brought back the short-lived “Price-Lock Guarantee” for these new plans. This differs, from the “Price-Lock Promise” which “promised” to not raise prices, but if, somehow, oopsie, T-Mobile did raise prices, they’d pay your last bill if you decided to cancel.
The new plans basically bring back the same guarantee that was present between April of 2022 and January of 2024, where T-Mobile will actually guarantee that they won’t ever raise prices. Theoretically, this means that T-Mobile can never pull a stunt like they did back in May with grandfathered voice plans with these new Home Internet plans.
A source shared with us an internal diagram that explains the differences quite well, as shown below.
So, what does “fast” vs “faster” mean, anyway?
You may have noticed that the two pricier plans come with a “faster” gateway. What exactly does this mean?
Well, we think it’s all just a bunch of marketing nonsense. The G4AR, the latest and greatest gateway from T-Mobile, offers external antenna connections and is compatible with the mesh access point node the company also offers. It isn’t, however, any “faster”, at least from what we can tell.
The base “Rely” plan likely includes one of the many previous models, like the Sercomm or Sagemcom. Those have the same 5G capabilities as the G4AR, but without the external antenna capabilities (at least not without some modifications).
In fact, T-Mobile agrees, or at least they used to. Back when the G4AR was first rolling out, T-Mobile was essentially giving everyone that ordered Home Internet, including the base plan, whatever gateway they had in stock at the time. Along with that, reps were often telling customers that “all of our gateways provide the same level of connectivity”.
Eventually, T-Mobile began separating the standard Home Internet customers and the “Plus” customers by gateway. Occasionally, base plan customers still received a G4AR, but the Plus customers always received one.
Of course, the more savvy customers knew that the G4AR was likely to be the better gateway, and many customers preferred having it due to the easy connection of an external antenna. Still, apples to apples, all of the company’s 5G gateways should perform about the same.
So why the “faster” marketing? You can be the judge on that. It’s possible T-Mobile plans to enable features only on the G4AR that could increase speeds compared to the other models, but we don’t personally see that happening. We’ll keep an eye out, though.
Do you really need the extras?
When it comes down to it, are the extra features of the more expensive plans worth it? Probably not.
Aside from the perk of having the newer gateway, the only benefit we see to the higher tiers is the included mesh node and the streaming benefits on the “All-In” plan.
Even then, you’re probably better off buying your own WiFi mesh system at a one-time cost instead of paying an extra $20/mo for the privilege.
Plus, Hulu with ads was as cheap as 99c per month on it’s own for Black Friday, and many customers already have Paramount+ for free or cheap anyway. Even if you don’t, at a value of $7.99/mo, it still doesn’t exactly make up for the price difference the “All-In” plan costs.
Then there’s the “Advanced Cyber Security”, which has yet to show it’s worth. For most customers, it probably isn’t necessary. Having 24/7 tech support is nice, but again, worth the upcharge?
Our thoughts
When it comes down to it, you’ll have to be the judge. Personally, I’d either go with the “Rely” plan or the “All-In” plan. The “Amplified” plan is an extra $120 per year for just a small added security layer you may not need and a gateway you also probably don’t need.
That being said, existing Home Internet customers may want to switch to the new “Rely” plan, as it does offer the benefit of having the new Price Lock Guarantee.
T-Mobile’s new Home Internet plans launch on December 11th.
