T-Mobile 5G Home Internet vs. Google Fiber

Google Fiber and T-Mobile 5G Home Internet are both great internet service providers (ISPs), but they are great in different ways.

Google Fiber has limited availability and high prices, but it offers unparalleled performance for remote workers, serious streamers, and online gamers. T-Mobile’s prices are cheaper, and it’s available all over the country, but it’s also much slower.

We’ll go over everything you need to know in this comparison article, including the prices, plans, customer service record, and availability of both providers. Read on for the juicy deets (or just skip to the end for the recap if you’re busy). 

T-Mobile 5G Home Internet only offers one plan, no matter where you live. Google Fiber offers four plans.

See how easy that was? But that pricing chart doesn’t tell the whole story. Let’s take a closer look at each company’s plans and pricing, beginning with T-Mobile.

T-Mobile’s 5G Home Internet plan costs you $50 a month and gets you data speeds between 33 and 182 Mbps. There’s no data cap, no contract, no equipment rental cost, and no hidden fees.

T-Mobile’s plan is a decent deal overall. It’s similar in price to other providers, like Xfinity and Spectrum, while giving you the ease of wireless internet.

You probably know T-Mobile as a cell phone carrier first and foremost. If you happen to be on T-Mobile’s Magenta Max mobile plan (or want to sign up for it), then the company will give you a $20-a-month discount on your 5G home internet service. Also, all new customers can get a $50 prepaid Mastercard when they switch from another provider.

We think this plan from T-Mobile 5G Home Internet is perfect for:

• Rural residents who want an alternative to satellite internet and DSL
• Small families and couples who don’t need a ton of bandwidth and want to save money
• Renters and first-time home buyers who may move more frequently and want to bring their internet with them
• Existing T-Mobile Magenta Max customers

Google Fiber’s internet plans are rather straightforward. There’s a 1 Gig, 2 Gig, 5 Gig, and 8 Gig plan and they offer just what they promise: super fast gigabit speed internet. All plans have unlimited data, no contract, and no hidden fees.

The biggest issue for most customers is the price. At $70, Google’s cheapest internet plan costs as much as some other ISP’s priciest plans. If you want the 2Gig plan, you’ll be paying $100 a month, which is twice the price of T-Mobile’s 5G plan. Not to mention upwards of $150 for the 8 Gig plan.

Why so expensive? Unlike me, when I negotiate my freelance writing rates, Google knows its worth. The company’s totally fiber-optic network gives you faster and more consistent speeds than pretty much any other (more on that below). Paying an extra $20 a month is totally worth it if you rely on your internet for work.

One more thing to mention is Google Fiber Webpass. This is a service that Google offers in very select areas. It’s restricted to specific offices and apartment buildings, so we won’t go into detail about it here. You learn more about Webpass in our full Google Fiber review.

To summarize, we think Google Fiber is a great option for:

• Very online people, like serious gamers, Twitch streamers, influencers, and remote workers
• Big families and other shared living situations where multiple people stream/game/download over the internet at once
• Cord cutters who want to replace cable TV with livestreaming services

You can get enough speed from a 5G mobile network to stream a movie and even do some casual gaming, but it will never be as fast as a wired internet connection. So comparing T-Mobile 5G Home Internet to Google Fiber seems a bit unfair, but we’ll do it anyway.

Google Fiber uses a fiber-optic network (who woulda’ guessed?), which is the fastest and most reliable internet technology around. It can easily reach speeds of 1,000Mbps. T-Mobile’s 5G maxes out at under 200Mbps. *sad trombone*

But fiber doesn’t only offer fast download speeds. It also has fast upload speeds, which are important for activities like video conferencing, uploading files, and online gaming.

With speeds like this, why would anyone choose T-Mobile over Google Fiber? One of the simplest reasons comes down to availability.

T-Mobile has the largest 5G Home Internet service in the country, covering over 30 million homes. Google Fiber’s availability is much more limited.

The best way to visualize T-Mobile’s home internet coverage is by looking at this interactive map. The carrier’s home internet service is available pretty much everywhere that its 5G network has coverage.

Meanwhile, Google Fiber doesn’t need a coverage map because we can just list all of the locations where it’s available:

• Huntsville, Alabama
• Orange County, California
• Oakland, California
• San Diego, California
• San Francisco, California
• Atlanta, Georgia
• West Des Moines, Iowa (coming soon)
• Kansas City, Kasnsas and Missouri
• Charlotte, North Carolina
• The Triangle, North Carolina
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Austin, Texas
• San Antonio, Tesas
• Salt Lake Valley, Utah
• Provo, Utah

In the next year or two, Google does plan to expand to new locations in Idaho, Nevada, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Colorado. But its availability will still pale in comparison to T-Mobile and will be non-existent in rural areas.

So if you live in Yakima, Washington, or Hendersonville, North Carolina, then T-Mobile 5G Home Internet is obviously a better bet than waiting for Google Fiber to come around. (I hate to break it to you, but they ain’t).

You can always double-check what ISPs are available in your area by using our handy zip code plan finder tool.

No one wants to call their internet provider for help. But what are you going to do when you can’t find the solution on YouTube or Google because your internet is down?

Luckily, both T-Mobile and Google seem to have put some real money and time into staffing their customer service departments. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), T-Mobile scores a 74 out of 100, putting it near the top of the list.

And while Google Fiber isn’t actually covered by the index because it’s not a big enough internet provider, we do have some data. Google informally collaborated with ACSI in 2020 and claims that it was ranked first in value, security, and other categories.

When I lived in Salt Lake City and was a Google Fiber customer for several years, I found it easy to reach representatives both on the phone and through online chat.

That wraps up our T-Mobile 5G Home Internet vs. Google Fiber review. Have you made up your mind yet? If not, here’s a quick recap of all the important points we made.

• Plans and prices: T-Mobile has a $50 one-size-fits-all plan that gets you decent speeds and comes with a few perks for new customers. Google Fiber’s plans are more expensive, but they come with faster and more reliable speeds.
• Speeds: Google’s fiber-optic network simply can’t be matched by T-Mobile’s 5G network. Google Fiber is clearly the better option for those who need superfast and reliable internet for remote working, gaming, streaming, or anything else.
• Availability: T-Mobile’s 5G Home Internet is available all over the country, including in rural areas where the other options are bad. Google Fiber, on the other hand, is only available in about a dozen major cities.
• Our takeaway: If you want the best internet that money can buy and you live in a place where it’s available, Google Fiber is the best choice. If you live anywhere else or just want to save a few bucks, T-Mobile 5G Home Internet is totally decent.

We began this comparison review by researching all of the available data about T-Mobile 5G Home Internet and Google Fiber. We looked at the prices, plans, availability, customer reviews, and we even read the fine print about their policies.

After gathering all of the information, we put the two ISPs side by side to evaluate which one was better in a number of important categories. We made our final recommendations with a focus on how well each company would work for different kinds of internet users.

Thank you for reading! Please let us know if you have any questions.