If you’re considering Starlink and T-Mobile Home Internet for your home broadband connection, chances are you live in a rural or remote area with no cable or fiber internet access. Starlink and T-Mobile Home Internet are increasingly popular options for home internet in rural areas as they present significant improvements over traditional satellite and DSL services, and each comes with its unique advantages.
Starlink boasts far greater availability, including roaming internet capabilities, but T-Mobile Home Internet will be the potentially faster, definitely cheaper internet provider. Equipment fees further separate the two providers, but both offer unlimited data and no contract requirements.
In CNET’s reviews of each internet service provider, T-Mobile Home Internet scored a 7.4 out of 10, one of the highest ratings out of all 40-plus ISPs CNET has reviewed (Verizon Fios has the best overall score at 7.6). Starlink, on the other hand, received a 6.5, well below T-Mobile Home Internet but still higher than competing satellite internet providers Hughesnet (6) and Viasat (6.1).
The review scores represent how I would lean when recommending Starlink versus T-Mobile Home Internet. If T-Mobile Home Internet is available, it’s likely to be a better choice than Starlink. However, if your broadband connection comes down to Starlink or other satellite providers — and it may, considering T-Mobile Home Internet isn’t available everywhere — Starlink is often the better broadband option.
How else do Starlink and T-Mobile Home Internet compare, and which service is ultimately the best for your home? You’ll find everything you need to know about Starlink versus T-Mobile Home Internet below.
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Starlink vs. T-Mobile Home Internet plans
Starlink offers four service tiers, but you’ll really have only two options for fixed home internet: Standard or Priority (the same goes for Starlink’s Mobile internet, for a total of four plans). The Priority plan offers a higher upload and download speed range, at least until you’ve reached the data limit, after which service is bumped to Standard for the reminder of the billing cycle.
T-Mobile Home Internet has just one plan, but it’s a better internet deal than Starlink’s fixed home internet plans. T-Mobile Home Internet is half the price of Starlink’s cheapest plan (and even cheaper for qualifying T-Mobile voice customers) and has a higher speed range. Here’s a look at each provider’s plans.
Starlink internet plan details
Starlink plan
Monthly price
Download speed range
Upload speed range
Equipment costs
Data cap
Contract
Home Internet
$60 ($40 or $50 with qualifying mobile plan)
72-245Mbps
15-31Mbps
None
None
None
Starlink vs. T-Mobile Home Internet pricing
As mentioned above, T-Mobile Home Internet is half the cost of Starlink’s cheapest plan at $60 per month compared with $120 with Starlink Standard. A $10 or $20 discount is available to qualifying T-Mobile voice customers, bringing the monthly rate down to $40 or $50. There are no set price increases with T-Mobile Home Internet, and the provider is currently running a unique “price lock,” offering to pay your final bill if the monthly rate ever increases.
Likewise, there are no set price increases with Starlink, but the monthly home internet rate has fluctuated in the short time since service has been available (in fairness, T-Mobile Home Internet rates have shifted from $60 to $50 and back to $60). Starlink’s cheapest plan, and probably the most suitable for everyday home internet, starts at $120 per month in most locations, while a select few “excess capacity” locations may luck out and get the lowest monthly rate, $90.
For a priority data connection with a faster speed range and better speed consistency during periods of network congestion, Starlink home internet will run you $140 to $500 per month depending on your chosen data allotment of 40GB, 1TB or 2TB. If you go the priority data route, I’d recommend the 1TB plan. Burning through 40GB can happen in less than a week, especially if you stream most of your entertainment, but the average household likely won’t come close to using 1TB of data in a month’s time.