I had ordered up the new Elon Musk “Starlink” kit several months ago in hopes that I could upgrade from our Verizon Mifi hotspot. The
program is in “Beta” and you have to be patient as a bleeding-edge consumer. Early on, Starlink sent updates letting me know an ETA for the delivery. I was pretty much convinced I would have my “dishy” (as the Elon romanticists in the Facebook groups have started calling it) by mid-May.
May came and went. So did June. I logged into my Starlink account and the status updates are getting vaguer. Mid to late 2021 is now the estimated date of my delivery. Still… As a beta tester… I am not freaking out about it, that’s part of the .
I have a deposit of 100 bucks for a spot on the waiting list. Once “Dishy” arrives they hit you will 500 bucks for the hardware, and your monthly payment is 99 bucks for 25 to 100 Mbps service. In case I have to remind anyone… I am paying Verizon about 50 bucks a month for unlimited data at 3G speeds up to 15 gig (That lasts 2 days) and then 600kps (that’s a K, not an M) for the rest of the billing period.
Starlink may seem expensive for the speeds… But when you live in rural central Illinois… It’s about as good as I could get. Don’t forget, I was paying 60 bucks a month to Frontier for 400kps before Verizon. There are other options, go back years and you can read about my experiences with Hughesnet.
Now… Comes the newest thing. T-Mobil 5G.
My buddy Jacob Irish, has gone back to his roots with T-Mobile and was at my house with his new phone and started checking service. He was getting 30mbps on his phone at my house with 5G. That’s pretty strong compared to my Verizon 4G phone. Better yet… After talking to him, I found out that T-Mobile offers unlimited hotspot usage that, even with throttled speeds, are as fast as my 4G at full speed.
Oh, and the price is the same as my Verizon Hotspot.
So… I have ordered the T-Mobile device. I was at the East Peoria T-Mobile and Carlos, the store employee, patiently waited for me to unlock my credit bureau (thanks to a fraudulent unemployment claim) for the credit check. They don’t stock the hotspots and it will be delivered via the mail in a few days.
In case anyone is confused because they know more about this than most… T-Mobile is offering a device called “The Home Thing” or something like that… This service was not available at our address. It’s a larger 5G home hotspot with a guaranteed level of speed. While that would be cool, and I did add myself to the waiting list, I will be happy if the 5G hotspot device I ordered does half what’s advertised.
Results soon! (I hope!)