Back to Comcast....

That's it, I'm done with TMobile HINT. I've had HINT for 6 months. I've spent days trying to get them to fix the problems. Their people are clueless.

The worst outage was when it went out completely. That needed three or four trips to their store, and hours on the phone. At one point they blamed my Gateway unit (which they provided) and asked me to exchange it for a newer one (and charged me $20 for that) and it didn't change anything (they were just guessing). Finally, after about 2 or 3 weeks, tech support told me it was "something on the Tower" and he'd fixed it, and "put a note on your account so it doesn't happen again," and service was indeed restored.

During that outage, I ran by tethering to my T-Mobile phone. That blew out my phone data quota, and they tried to charge my phone account extra for that. I told them they owed me the data because it was their outage, and they did agree, and cancelled the extra charge on the phone.

That was the only total and enduring outage. But I also have had persistent problems with intermittent outages which always last either a few seconds (like 5) or just over one minute (1:05 to 1:15). The consistent timing suggest a recurring drop-and-reconnect in the software somewhere. I have a program on my PC which logs this stuff.  It's not my LAN, everything inside the LAN works fine, but nothing inside the LAN can get internet during the drop.

I had 6 drops between 6AM and noon today. This is irritating if you're browsing, embarrassing if you're in a Zoom meeting, and fatal if you're gaming.

Again, store personnel and tech support were utterly clueless, just reading scripts and guessing. Finally it got escalated to a guy who admitted, "We're doing work on your Tower. It will be done after Labor Day." I asked where the Tower was and he said he wasn't permitted to tell me.

After Labor day these little outages did indeed stop. But two weeks ago they started up again.  No way I'm spending another 10 hours partying with tech support. They don't know what the problem is, I might as well accept that.

So it's back to Comcast for me. As of last April when I moved, they have a very basic plan called "Performance Starter", internet only, that cost $60. Speeds up to 25 MBps which is quite enough for home use. Service drops very rare, once or twice a year, after storms.

If you want to try HINT, it is pretty low-effort and low-risk to try out: no contract, and a one-month free trial. If it works for you, great, I'm happy for you and your Tower. But if you need to call tech support, don't bother. Just call Comcast or Verizon instead; it will save you a lot of time and aggravation.

I hope this detail gives TMobile management a HINT.