I switched from Google Fi to Mint Mobile in 2020, and I’ve been a fan of Mint since. The ultra-low cost means I don’t have to spend a fortune for data I rarely use, and the service is reliable enough for the price.
Since I’m limited to a single decent ISP choice for home internet, I was excited when Mint Mobile announced its home internet plan. The reduced cost for those who use the mobile plan is great, and it’s much more palatable than what I’m paying now. But as much as I want to love it, a few facets of the plan give me pause.
What Mint Mobile’s 5G home internet offers
Mint Mobile’s home internet is similar to other 5G home internet plans you might have heard about. Instead of a modem that connects to a cable or fiber-optic line from outside your home, a 5G home gateway connects to a provider’s mobile network using a SIM card like your phone does.
Mint’s home internet service, like its wireless plans, is powered by T-Mobile’s network. It offers the same simple setup as other 5G solutions: you plug in the provided gateway and connect your devices to Wi-Fi as usual. You can set the equipment up yourself, and there are no upfront or rental fees for the router.
If you’re familiar with Mint, you’ll know that one of its signature aspects is prepaid plan periods, with discounts the longer you buy. Mint’s home internet is similar; excluding an introductory offer, you’ll pay $50/month for a 3-month plan, $45/month for a 6-month plan, or $40/month if you pay for 12 months at once.
What sweetens the deal is that if you have a Mint Mobile cell plan, you’ll save $10/month on those prices. Given that it’s difficult to find decent home internet for under $50/month, these prices are tempting (though they don’t include taxes and fees).
I want to love Mint’s home 5G
For context, I’ve been wishing for a new ISP for a while. Since I moved to my current home in 2020, I’ve had Comcast Xfinity because it’s the sole reliable option. Verizon FIOS isn’t available in my neighborhood, leaving the only other options as 5G or unreliable satellite connections.
My main issue with Comcast is the constant games I have to play with the price. Every year, they raise my price, so I call and complain. Rather than lowering the cost, they continually offer me faster service for the same (or slightly higher) price.
For example, when I called about my monthly price jumping from $50 to $70, they offered to increase my speed from 400Mbps to 600Mbps and charge $60/month. I agreed to this; if I’m paying more, I want more speed, not the same.
Because of this, I’ve gone from 200Mbps to 1Gbps over the years. That’s way more speed than I need, but it’s the best way I’ve been able to keep the cost down. Meanwhile, in the 4.5 years since I’ve had Mint Mobile, the price has never gone up. While I’d love that price stability with my home internet too, there’s more at play than the cost.
My primary worry: 5G internet isn’t reliable enough
I work from home and I’m big into gaming, which are my two biggest concerns with 5G home internet. I need a reliable internet connection since almost all my work is online, and I need a stable connection for low ping while playing games online.
For all cable internet’s faults, it’s reliable, so I have to give points to Comcast for that. I’ve had less than one major outage per year; knowing that my service won’t drop on me is important.
That’s where I’m not sold on 5G home internet yet. My phone hovers between one and two bars of cell service in my house, which is fine since I’m on Wi-Fi. But if that becomes my primary method of getting online, I foresee issues—even if I put the gateway in the signal sweet spot.
5G is more susceptible to interference from weather, congestion, and other problems than cable internet is. I can’t have one day be great and the next be fraught with connection problems. If I had a full-strength 5G signal all the time or didn’t need my network to be always online, I’d be more willing to try it.
I’ve also had a poor prior experience with 5G home internet. In 2022, my parents gave T-Mobile’s home 5G internet a try, since it was offering a deal at the time. After I helped them set it up, everything looked good—until we tried streaming a movie. It buffered and froze multiple times, leading them to return it quickly.
The price was great, but the real-world performance wasn’t. While I imagine the situation has improved in three years, I’m still not thrilled about the prospect.
Other concerns put me off from switching
5G reliability isn’t the only reason I’m hesitant to try Mint’s home internet; speed variability is another. The Broadband Facts labels on Mint’s site state that typical download speeds are 133–415Mbps down and 12–55Mbps up, with latency being 16-28ms.
A Cloudflare speed test reports I’m currently getting 729Mbps down and 42Mbps up on my wired-in desktop, with 18ms latency. I don’t mind dropping my speed to save money, but I wouldn’t be OK with being at the lower end of those estimates all the time.
Data limits are another potential hurdle. Mint notes that if you use more than 1TB/month, your data speeds may slow when the network is congested. Meanwhile, Xfinity doesn’t have data caps on its plans in my area. In the last year, I haven’t hit 1TB of usage in a month, though I’ve gotten close a few times. With everything taking more data now (game and OS updates, apps, Spotify lossless streaming, and more), I don’t want to be limited on what I can do.
Finally, I want to use my own router so I have greater control over my network. You can use a router with a 5G home gateway, but there are more steps involved, and that’s a hoop I don’t want to jump through.
Mint’s home internet is promising, but not enough
I’ve decided I’m willing to put up with Mint Mobile’s drawbacks on mobile, but not for home internet. With an MVNO like Mint, you’re not a priority customer; T-Mobile is going to put its subscribers first.
This is understandable, but it isn’t workable for my setup. I spend an enormous amount of time online at home compared to sporadic use on the go, so the savings aren’t worth the hassle.
Mint offers a 14-day return guarantee, which I could use to test it out. But with the model of paying upfront, I worry about locking in a year only to find out that it performs poorly (or have another option like FIOS become available). If I were stuck on DSL or other horrible internet, then I would be more willing to try Mint’s home solution. But because my main issue with Xfinity is the price, and I can’t accept a drop in reliability, I’m going to stick with it for now.
If you’ve tried Mint’s home internet or other 5G home internet, I’d love to hear what you think!