But the first hurdle is whether 5G home internet service is available at your address. 5G signals don’t reach everywhere, and you might not be eligible for home broadband service even when they do. That said, Verizon and T-Mobile are the providers doing the most to expand the technology’s availability for home internet use. (Note: AT&T doesn’t have a 5G home internet offering for now, but that’s changing soon with its AT&T Internet Air product.) Both providers offer dedicated 5G fixed wireless home internet plans that promise fast speeds and simple terms at an affordable rate. In some areas, you might even find that your home is serviceable by both, as CNET’s own Eli Blumenthal discovered in his quest to replace his cable provider.
Time will tell how much 5G stands to disrupt the ISP category. Let’s look at how Verizon 5G Home and T-Mobile Home Internet match up.
Note: All prices listed on this page reflect available discounts for setting up paperless billing. If you decide not to go with automatic monthly payments, your price will be higher.
Fixed wireless Or call to learn more: () –
85 – 1,000 Mbps
$50 – $70 per month
Fixed wireless Or call to learn more: () –
72 – 245 Mbps
$60 per month
Overview of Verizon and T-Mobile 5G home internet plans
The latest Federal Communications Commission data puts T-Mobile Home Internet covering just over 89% of the US population.
Neither provider offers a detailed coverage map for its 5G home internet solution. But taking into account the total list of cities they claim to cover and the total number of households, T-Mobile is pretty clearly in the lead here. Still, Verizon closed the gap when it unveiled its 5G Ultra Wideband network in mid-January 2022.
While Verizon 5G Home Internet is available to approximately 40 million homes nationwide, T-Mobile Home Internet reaches over 50 million households in just over 600 cities nationwide. In contrast, Verizon’s service is available in parts of 900 cities but fewer homes.
To save your eyeballs (and our word count), we won’t list the 600-plus T-Mobile cities here, but you can peruse this T-Mobile Home Internet PDF if you’d like to scan them for yourself. Verizon has not yet made available a list of the 900 cities in which its 5G Home Internet service can be found, but you can use its Check Availability tool here.
Deals and promos
Still not convinced by the straightforward terms both T-Mobile and Verizon put forward? They’ll try to sway you with their promotional offers.
First, T-Mobile and Verizon are so confident in their 5G home products that each offers to pay off any early termination fees for new customers who break their current ISP contract, up to $500 for Verizon and $750 from T-Mobile.
Second, they each offer deep discounts for eligible mobile customers. T-Mobile will shave off $20 monthly for Go5G Plus and Magenta Max subscribers. Verizon goes even further and offers a 50% discount for those with select 5G mobile plans.
Additionally, T-Mobile offers new Home Internet customers a free year (and $100 grocery credit) of Instacart Plus ($200 total value), six months of SiriusXM (worth $66) and 12 months of the streaming service ViX Plus. Finally, all home internet subscribers get a price-lock guarantee and can use T-Mobile Tuesdays, the company’s weekly discount program.
Verizon’s perks are tilted toward its 5G Home Plus tier. While subscribers of either plan will get a price-lock guarantee (two years for 5G Home, three years for 5G Home Plus), Verizon 5G Home Plus customers will also get their choice of either a free Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go or this year’s NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV.
What do customers think?
We refer to two of the top customer satisfaction surveys within our ISP reviews — J.D. Power and the American Customer Satisfaction Index — and they place Verizon at the top of their rankings. But those residential internet surveys are focused on Verizon Fios, a fiber internet service, not specifically the Verizon 5G Home Internet option. So, the verdict is unclear on the company’s 5G fixed wireless internet product.
On the other hand, T-Mobile Home Internet — which has only been on the market for two years — was included in the ACSI’s 2023 survey results. Impressively, it led all nonfiber ISPs with 73 out of 100, well above the industry average of 68 points.
Anecdotally, one of our CNET writers tested T-Mobile during its pilot program and preferred it over his previous provider, Comcast Xfinity.
Lastly, PCMag’s most recent Readers’ Choice awards tagged Verizon 5G Home Internet with the highest overall ratings among wireless providers, with an 8.1 score on a scale from 0 to 10. That’s well above the survey’s average ISP score of 6.9. T-Mobile Home Internet was not far behind with a 7.7 score. Both landed in the top 10 of all ISPs for overall customer satisfaction. Not too shabby, I’d say.
Too close to call?
T-Mobile and Verizon are still aggressively building their 5G networks, so we’re much nearer the story’s beginning than the middle or end, especially regarding 5G fixed wireless internet overall.
Regarding these two providers, T-Mobile Home Internet has a slight edge in availability. Adding its 4G LTE network to 5G makes it a much more viable pick, particularly in rural and underserved areas of the country, where it’s a compelling alternative to options like satellite or DSL. But Verizon 5G Home Internet takes the lead in performance, featuring nearly triple the current download speeds of T-Mobile Home Internet. As such, Verizon seems poised to provide a higher upside in the immediate future in cities where the two overlap.
Verizon 5G Home vs. T-Mobile Home FAQs
Is T-Mobile Home Internet better than Verizon 5G Home?
