GRAND RAPIDS—Officials at T-Mobile US Inc. announced the expansion of the T-Mobile Home Internet pilot project in Kent, Muskegon, and Ottawa counties, where residents can sign up whether they’re a T-Mobile wireless phone customer or not.

T-Mobile Home Internet costs $50 a month, taxes and fees included, and requires no annual service contracts, and a pledge that the price of the service will never rise as long as the customer keeps the service.

The service also requires no hardware rental or installation costs and has no data caps.

T-Mobile Home Internet originally launched last year as an invite-only pilot for select T-Mobile customer households, including many in underserved and rural areas. Customer feedback has been positive:

  • Pilot participants rated T-Mobile Home Internet 8.6 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being extremely satisfied.
  • They give T-Mobile Home Internet an average Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 64, compared to minus 74 for their previous provider.
  • Nearly three-fourths of respondents say the service is very or extremely reliable, and 94 percent say they are somewhat, very or extremely likely to recommend T-Mobile Home Internet to others.
  • 69 percent report saving money with T-Mobile Home Internet and estimate they’re saving $384 per year ($32 a month) on average.
  • 73 percent say T-Mobile Home Internet offers them more than they could get with other providers in their area.

The Home Internet pilot provides home broadband on T-Mobile’s LTE network. With additional capacity unlocked by its merger with Sprint, T-Mobile is preparing to launch 5G Home Internet commercially nationwide, covering more than 50 percent of United States households within six years.

“As a company, we’re at our best disrupting the status quo and mixing it up with bloated, over-confident incumbents that have never been forced to compete for customers,” said Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile. “There’s not an industry that fits the ‘never compete’ definition better than cable and telco ISPs, AKA the Cableopoly. Three months into our merger with Sprint, we’re just at the very, very beginning of seeing the incredible benefits of our combined network but the early signs are extremely promising—particularly in rural America—not just for traditional wireless service but also for home broadband.”

Home broadband is one of the most uncompetitive and hated industries in America. Rural areas, in particular, lack options: more than three-quarters have no high-speed broadband service or only one option available. And when there’s no choice, customers suffer. It’s no wonder internet service providers and cable and satellite TV companies have the lowest customer satisfaction ratings out of 46 industries according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

T-Mobile Home Internet expects to deliver average download speeds around 50 Mbps or more through fixed unlimited wireless service, with no data caps. It’s $50 per month with AutoPay, and because it’s from T-Mobile, there are no annual service contracts, no hidden fees and no equipment costs. Setting up the in-home router is simple, and pilot customers get live human support.

More information about T-Mobile Home Internet at www.T-Mobile.com/GRHomeInternet.

This story appeared in Technology Century.