Forum Discussion
T-mobile 5G Home internet and VPN
I recently installed T-mobile 5G Home internet intending to replace Comcast Xfinity. Installation was a breeze and I have the gateway/router setup at an ideal location in my home. I am getting download speeds on par with Comcast in my area (~200-230 Mbps) . But once I logged into my work via VPN I noticed a significant downgrade in speeds. I see downloads and uploads via VPN throttled way down (1-2 Mbps) compared to without VPN. I can confirm there are no bandwidth issues when the VPN is slow, as I get very good speeds from a device that does not use VPN on the same setup.
Also I still have my Comcast setup and when I switched my wifi to use the Comcast gateway I see speeds over VPN are more than 15X of what I see with T-mobile . So it looks like T-mobile is clearly throttling VPN traffic. Everything else in the setup is the same (wifi, target device, VPN network etc). The only difference is the backend network (Comcast Vs T-mobile). I recall some mobile networks do this to prevent users from using their phones as a hotspot and log into work full time. But this is unwarranted for a 5G home internet solution.
Thanks for the update. As you note, I would expect download speeds to decrease with a VPN, but certainly not as much as you're stating. I use Mullvad VPN on my MacBook Pro, and I only see a ~10% decrease in speed.
I'd talk to your IT staff to see what they think. If they can't figure it out, I'd have them call your VPN vendor and ask why this might be happening. T-Mobile would have no reason to prioritize normal Internet traffic over encrypted signals. To them it's just another request.
T-Mobile's Home Internet protocol is called Fixed Wire Internet (FWI), same as Verizon's, which is why you need a gateway as opposed to a cable modem to communicate. The back end of both networks is fiber, so in and of itself, this doesn't explain the slowdown.
Just finished talking to T-mobile tech support. The tech support lady came up with a brilliant idea that this should be handled by the IT team at my work. Her rationale was that Comcast is a fiber optic backend network and handles VPN differently than T-mobile 5G home internet which is all wireless. I tried to reason with her in vain that wireless alone is not the issue . ( If I restart the TMO gateway and connect via VPN again the speeds are good for a minute or two before it gets throttled down, so it's not the setup or the VPN network itself) . Even the hotspot from my phone's Verizon network does not throttle VPN this much (although it does) .
T-mobile should advertise this as a strictly for entertainment home internet product. Anything else is misleading and a sureshot class action material for fraud.
