WOW! vs. T-Mobile 5G Home Internet: Which One Is Worth Your Money?

Speaking with several customers who rely on their T-Mobile service for various needs, from simple streaming to hardcore gaming, the consensus isn’t wholly surprising. Because both internet and smartphone connections come from the same towers, service can go up and down, particularly in rural areas with few towers or areas of congestion like big cities. If you’re not the most online household, just browsing the web on your devices and streaming your fave shows and movies, T-Mobile is a solid choice.

“We could barely stream Lakers and Dodger games, let alone shows on Netflix,” Steve Abbott says of his former internet service provider. Once his son set him up with T-Mobile, he noticed a big improvement right away.

“Took us from low-quality streaming on a single TV to being able to stream two different shows in two different rooms with high definition,” he says of his T-Mobile connection.

However, for customers who use their Wi-Fi for gaming, streaming, vlogging and more, T-Mobile falls short.

“I honestly gave up trying to game on this internet,” says Jordan Rivera, a T-Mobile 5G Home Internet customer in Las Vegas, Nevada. Even living near a 5G tower hasn’t helped him retain his lives while playing Apex Legends. “I would die before knowing anything hit me.”

Overall, customers call their T-Mobile services solid but have much to complain about when it comes to consistency.

Here’s the thing that becomes abundantly clear right away when reviewing internet services: Fiber is the way to go. Customers tend to be very happy with their fiber services, and it’s no different with WOW!

Gary LaPointe has been a WOW! customer for nine years. Based in Dearborn, Michigan, he’s tried various WOW! plans over his near decade as a user and says, “It’s been rock solid for me,” regardless of his plan.

“I've tried higher speeds up to 1Gbps, but the higher speeds were basically for two different reasons: Higher upload speeds (most of the lower plans were only 10Mbps up, and when I was teaching from home, I wanted a little higher upload speed) AND higher data cap (in some areas, they implemented a data cap and higher speed plans had higher caps),” he explains.

LaPointe loves that WOW! provides “great speed for the price.”

The issue is WOW! is not available in many cities, which makes it a pain to find. (Though there’s plenty of fiber options outside of WOW! to choose from.) And customers we’ve spoken to have had issues dealing with customer service agents. Reddit user throwawaydakappa tells us they were “impressed” with the service at first, having been offered a great deal from a salesman that showed up at their door—no charge for the first month. “They actually showed up the next day. They got everything installed,” they recall.

Then, 45 days later, throwawaydakappa’s service was disconnected for nonpayment. “Weird, ‘cause my first month is supposed to be free,” he says.