Taking T-Mobile Home Internet on a little trip.
T-Mobile Home RV Internet
The little trash can that could
Don’t try this at home.
So right off, I want to say that while we were told by our T-Mobile Rep that we can travel with this device, it is absolutely not designed to be a mobile solution to connectivity. “You could go somewhere this device won’t have service.”
He wasn’t wrong, you can’t have T-mobile service where none yet exists.
🟠 You should also be aware that T-mobile has recently been enforcing a policy that to receive the best service as you move around, you need to update them with your new location. Read more on this here.
I will say that under the hood this device is pretty road ready, given it is USB C powered (12v friendly), has modifiable antenna ports with the right tweaking and is capable of both 5g and 4g connectivity.
For 50 dollars a month do you have a 5g capable device with unlimited data? I didn’t think so.
Starlink has been confounding as of late, leading me to keep searching for something affordable to backup our Verizon setup with. Enter TMHI, T-Mobile Home Internet. If you’ve never heard of this service it has been gaining momentum for fixed location service as a cheap alternative to Comcast and other home internet providers. It is also at its core, nothing more than a 5g capable modem and router…
I personally heard about TMHI from other nomads on Facebook, but wrote it off as the prior generation of modem/router was not USB-C powered. I figured it couldn’t really offer what I needed out of a 2nd LTE Plan, which is to connect it directly to an external antenna and native 12v source. However, the new Arcadyn version released this year with a lot more tempting specs. Details here.
Modifications
The entire TMHI experience is designed to be setup at your house with a mobile device, basically locking you into some core options you can’t readily turn off or enable. It is also important to note that the sim card powering this device is locked to the IMEI of the “trash can” so you can’t just pop it into a pepwave and roll.
However, thanks to a very nice Nater Tater Youtuber, I learned just what I needed to know about modifying this device for my road needs.
To power it via DC 12v, I ordered this cigarette lighter adapter with a USB C to USB C cable from Amazon
I disabled onboard wireless so that I could connect via ethernet to my Pepwave Balance20x without worrying about an unused network. This allows me to manage the T-Mobile Home Internet Device directly via my Pepwave device. This is accomplished with a Windows Powershell Script, video tutorial here.
External antennas are key to performance, especially in regards to certain bands we wanted to be able to access via this device, especially T-mobile’s far reaching 600mhz N71. The device, stock, does not have external antenna ports but that can be modified if you’re willing to take the case apart. Remember, if you harm/break the device you will owe T-mobile 400 dollars. Instructions on this here.
I then have 2x2 MIMO, connected via SMA to our Peplink Mobility 42g roof top antenna
Experience so far: Amazing, if you’re an RVer
Home owners tend to be “whelmed” by this device as, unless you’re in a 5g saturated city you can be averaging under 35mbps whereas some folks are peaking in the 500+mbps range. Now as stationary living goes, that can seem relatively poor performance compared with 1gbps Comcast. But for us nomads, we know all too well just how little speed we are willing to deal with just to work from our favorite camping spot. I’ll take 20 down and 5 up all day if I can stay boondocked.
The impressive piece of this equipment that I’m excited about is being able to get usable data speeds in cities, something my Verizon PUDP plan does very poorly with due to network down priority/congestion.
I have seen speeds over 150mbps down, but keenly, 30-40mbps upload, far surpassing Starlink in that regard.
I have seen speeds at peak times of as low as 15 down/15 up, but the service keeps working
My average ping is 55ms here in Arizona to the LA based speed test centers (quite good compared to Verizon average of 80.)
Gaming and Zoom have gone well so far, better than our uptime with Starlink
Service on the 5g side is going to be limited to places where T-mobile has this equipment in place. It should be noted that band n71 is the slowest of the 5ghz options for T-mobile, but the farthest reaching frequency for any carrier in this spectrum. Review the cellmapper data to ensure the places you camp might have this 5g coverage. The device will fallback to 4g, so I’m not very worried more excited by the chance at having 5g as we travel.
Being told its not available in your area yet?
So was I. I instead called our business rep, as we have a T-mobile business account for our tablet plan and they had a device on the way in five days. I believe the website is simply under representing availability so call if you can’t seem to get the order completed online, business account or not.