t-mobile Home Internet - Location Issue

 BTW, does Verizon 5G Home have similar problems????????   I’d try it if it was available in my location.

This problem is worse than described, at least for me.  When browsing to various websites, my location is determined to be one of a number of places. It may be either New Orleans, Orlando, or Jacksonville FL for many shopping sites such as big box stores, restaurants, and state government service. But various 'geo-locators' such as "iplocation.net" show it to be in Mobile AL.  This causes problems such as inaccurate inventory and pricing, wrong 'near me' lookups, and as others have reported, denial of service because of wrong state!

Additionally there are similar problems as reported by others on this thread for sports apps/websites such as ESPN, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, etc.   (Although I would appreciate receiving the “wrong” NFL games at times given I have no interest in the chosen local broadcast, the selected city has never been far enough to allow for an more interesting alternative.)

All of that and also video streaming and/or television services!

Come on T-Mobile!  There has to be a solution to this.   This is systemic to your network! 

BTW, none of this makes sense to me.  Since this is cell-based network connection, our location should be easily correctly determined.  After all a cell-phone can be tracked to a physical tower, so surely a fixed location cell-based-gateway could also be tracked to a tower and that location be utilized for all geolocation requests!!!

Same issues as above. VPN's can be tricky and troublesome, but for the 95% of the time it works for me I can live with that. T-Mobile Home Internet has had me show up in Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and even China. So, you can imagine what comes back on web pages I was using. I am north of San Diego. My solution was to fire up the VPN and set it to only use a Los Angeles based server for an IP address.

Thinking about using one of my Asus routers and setting up the VPN on it, so all the stuff using the wi-fi will use that LA based VPN server for a WAN IP address, it would hand out the LAN IP's. Speeds will slow down, higher latency and longer pings. Just not sure if the slower speeds are worth the trade off for sites and services not liking the VPN? Google results is one that gives a failed connection results when using my VPN. If I could count on T-Mobile for decent Home Internet, it would not be an issue to use a slower VPN through a router to handle DNS and obtaining local IP addresses. Without the L.A. VPN getting results in Spanish is a pain, my Spanish is very limited T-Mobile and images don't translate!

THIS IS A WELL KNOWN issue..T mobile just  doesn't give a sh-t. People need to call them out and cancel..When you call ..they tell everyone the same Bull-Sh-t. The internet is littered with this problem. There is nothing you can do...THEY NEED TO FIX IT. Its the way they use Geo location instead of your zip code to report your location IE address instead they report their own Geo location instead of your home location therefore your assigned the local channels. from where they are located….not your physical  home address.  

WAK

Ive been having the same issue for over a year. Even my bank sends me notifications after I sign in, that my location is incorrect. What's the deal? It's a hassle

The explanation that "this is how cellular works" is a poor excuse.  okay, I could understand if it good the exact address wrong, but this is ridiculous.  It says I am in a different city and sometimes even state.   And my phone on the cellular network does not do this.  FIX THIS T-MOBILE

Cali Cat wrote:

This is how cellular internet works just like a cell phone. The local towers connect to a backend that could be a long distance from your physical location. As for YoutubeTV, you just update your location using your YoutubeTV mobile app and it will use the GPS of your smartphone to identify location. I assume you are trying to set the location on a streaming device so just follow the onscreen instructions that tell you to open the mobile app. I have both TMO Home internet and YoutubeTV and using the YoutubeTV mobile app to pinpoint location works fine.

This doesn't work with Sling TV.  It goes exclusively off your ip location

Guppy_puppy wrote:

The explanation that "this is how cellular works" is a poor excuse.  okay, I could understand if it good the exact address wrong, but this is ridiculous.  It says I am in a different city and sometimes even state.   And my phone on the cellular network does not do this.  FIX THIS T-MOBILE

Im in Dallas Texas or Austin Texas according to my ip address, I'm actually in Oklahoma City.  They need to fix this issue for streaming services like ESPN 

More than just Sling.  Connect a computer to it an all your searches will be wrong.  Connect to Google Home.  It freeks out.   They tell me to get a vpn.  T-MOBILE, YOU PAY FOR THAT.  Don't expect me to pay for something that is doesn't function in the first place.

The solution (best answer) provided by @Cali Cat is just as valid now as it was a year ago. This isn't a T-Mobile issue, but rather a content provider issue. As long as content providers rely upon inaccurate 3rd party IP-adddress based geolocation database services, the issue will persist. You should be directing your fire towards those content providers.

You yourself state that it doesn't occur on your phone. That's because your phone has GPS and content providers can rely on that rather than a 3rd party inaccurate service (unless of course you deny location permission to apps or web sites through your phone's browser app).. Smart TVs don't have GPS capabilities. Laptops typically don't have GPS either.

The bottom line is that an IP-address is not a physical address. Prior to the advent of mobile carriers, some enterprising third parties figured out they could  track IP addresses and correlating them with known physical addresses obtained from various sites that expose your physical location,through data collection, This hack quickly breaks down with both mobile carriers and satellite ISPs. However it was always considered close enough for horseshoes on wire-line carriers primarily due to how they could allocate IP addresses due  to their physical infrastructures.

If you want it corrected, direct the complaints to content providers who continue to rely on 3rd party IP-address based geolocation databases that at best are nothing but wild guesses and some are wilder than others. Alternately choose content providers like YouTube TV that allow more flexibility in determining your proper location.

The only way this s truly resolved is with the introduction of GPS to all devices - but be careful what you wish for.

Chris B wrote:

I just got T-mobile internet and suddenly the ads on streaming services are for Atlanta businesses (I live in North Carolina).

 

Also when I go to sites like Lowes.com and Walmart.com it thinks I am in Atlanta, but Target.com thinks I am in Chattanooga, TN. Other sites see that I am in NC. 

I hear that Netflix may soon be rolling out a feature that blocks people from sharing passwords by making them login at their home location. I worry that since my internet thinks I am in Atlanta, this will cause problems in the future. I also worry about what other issues may come up. I am still in my 15-day trial period. 

I rejoined Netflix for a month last weekend and got an e-mail from them yesterday saying someone in Pennsylvania signed into my account. (I'm over 250 miles away from that state.)  I think that happend after I signed in on my PC, not when I opened the app on my TV.  The e-mail said if it was someone in my household, to enjoy watching.  But it also reminded me that Netflix does not allow anyone outside of my household to use my account. 

I did a live chat with Netflix telling the rep that anyone with T-Mobile internet may show another state location. He said that was not a problem with Netflix . . . which I knew . . . and since they use the IP to identify location, I needed to turn off VPN.  Had no idea what he was even talking about, and told him the only reason I was chatting was to see if Netflix intended to continuously accuse me of allowing others to use my account.  He said no, they would not accuse me of that.  I told him okay, but if they did, I would have no problem cancelling my subscription. :) Not that I think the email was a big deal. I simply wanted to inform them of the situation with 5G internet, in case they didn't know such things.