Starlink vs. T-Mobile: What is the Better Rural Internet Solution

Starlink’s primary residential internet service is $120 per month. It’s expensive compared to other service providers, but at least it doesn’t come with any strings attached, like a mandatory commitment or contract. If you’re not impressed, you can cancel at any time. The bigger hurdle for many will be the upfront cost of the hardware.

Unlike other providers that usually lease their equipment, Starlink requires you to buy the dish, accompanying router/gateway, and cables outright. The regular price for Starlink’s standard kit is $499; however, Starlink often discounts its equipment in certain areas, so you should check if your address qualifies for a reduced price.

In the first 30 days after activation, if you’re unhappy with the internet quality or it isn’t working in your location, you can return it to Starlink for a full refund. After 30 days, they will be unlikely to accept it. However, since you own the equipment, you can sell and transfer ownership to someone else as a way to recoup your money.

Starlink offers several other plans for its many different use cases, the other most popular being its Roam service plans that allow you to connect to Starlink’s network from anywhere in the U.S. and many places internationally. The expensive Priority plans are typically marketed for businesses and give customers the fastest speeds possible under an allotment of data.

T-Mobile offers its home internet through two plans: Home Internet Unlimited and Home Internet Plus. Your monthly internet price will depend on a couple of factors, including whether you’re already or plan to be a T-Mobile customer for your mobile needs. Home Internet Unlimited can be as low as $30 per month when bundled with at least one mobile phone line, and you opt-in for auto-pay. It's a pretty low cost, but it needs to be paired with a T-Mobile phone plan, which is also pretty affordable. If you’re not interested in a T-Mobile phone plan or autopay, the total price is $65 per month—still half the cost of Starlink’s base plan. Plus, there is no equipment cost.

Home Internet Plus is $50 per month with the discounts or $75 without. The expected speeds of both plans are identical, but the Plus has several additional features. The plan includes a higher-powered 5G router and a Wi-Fi mesh device, making it ideal for customers with larger homes or a guest house. It also comes with 24/7 technical support for not just your T-Mobile home internet but any device that’s connected to it.

Starlink’s Residential plan with a standard dish is capable of surprising download speeds, often surpassing its expected top speed of 220Mbps. It’s nowhere near the lightning speeds of fiber or even cable that can reach multiple gigabytes per second, but Starlink speeds are enough for most internet users. The speeds you obtain with Starlink depend on several factors, and it’s never guaranteed to be the fastest, which is the case with all wireless internet providers.

A huge factor is your location. Starlink has enough satellites now for global coverage, but if you happen to be in an area with lots of other Starlink users, then you’re essentially competing with your neighbors for the bandwidth of the satellites above. Starlink and SpaceX’s solution for this is launching more satellites and offering priority data at a premium price.

T-Mobile’s speeds depend entirely on your proximity to its expansive 5G cellular network. According to T-Mobile, customers can expect average speeds ranging from 72 to 245Mbps.

Since your speed and quality are based on your location, it’s not guaranteed you will get its top speed, but it’s also possible to see even faster speeds. Determining if you’ll get anywhere close to their advertised speeds is essential since you don’t want to pay for something that does not work out for your situation and needs. Speed test data by HighSpeedInternet.com reveals an average of 111Mbps in the U.S. This is serviceable for most internet use cases like email, streaming, and even online gaming.    

Starlink is readily available throughout most of the U.S., with anyone able to buy a kit and activate the service. According to the FCC, Starlink provides 99.5 percent of coverage to the U.S. and is also usable throughout much of the world.

T-Mobile 5G Home Internet is also abundantly available throughout the country, with its coverage available in every state except Alaska. Its mobile network is known to be the largest, surpassing the other leading carriers, and this extends to its home internet service. However, its coverage is far from perfect, with a lack of coverage in the most rural places in the country, especially in the West. It provides about 58 percent of coverage in the U.S., and certain areas have coverage but will have weak signal. T-Mobile works in many rural locations, but Starlink outshines its availability. You can check with our zip code tool to see if your address is in T-Mobile’s network.

Starlink and T-Mobile offer portable versions of their internet solutions for RVs, campers, and those living nomad lifestyles. Much of what applies to their residential internet also applies to these mobile options, though they are notably more expensive. Starlink Roam and T-Mobile 5G AWAY can be used anywhere in their respective coverage areas without being tied to a fixed address. Both can also be used while in motion, so passengers can enjoy high-speed internet on long road trips or boats. The trade-off is that mobile internet is prioritized less than residential, so you can expect slower speeds than at home.

Read more about Starlink Roam and T-Mobile AWAY.

Starlink and T-Mobile's reliability is a mixed bag. Most outages for individual customers are typically weather-related. Both depend on clear skies and no obstructions, so when it’s overcast, raining, or snowing, you will see a drop in performance.

T-Mobile’s network can be plagued by power outages. If you’re in range of just a single cellular tower, and it suffers a power outage, then you’re out of luck.

The Starlink satellite network still depends on ground infrastructures that can cause slowdowns, but even if the nearest ground station goes offline, the satellites revert your connection to the next one. Unfortunately, Starlink has limited options when it comes to customer support.

Unlike most providers, Starlink doesn’t have a phone number, email address, or live chat for support. Support requests, whether it’s about billing or technical issues, must go through the ticket system on the Starlink website or app. Before submitting the ticket, you need to interact with a chatbot that will attempt to resolve your issue by pointing you to a page on its help center. Most Starlink customers we’ve interviewed praise the service’s speed and ease of use but were frustrated with the lack of support when they did have issues.   

Like most mobile carriers, we’ve seen mixed reactions to T-Mobile’s customer support. At least they have more options to reach out. T-Mobile 5G Home Internet Plus comes with 24/7 tech support that also helps with any questions you have with your devices

Starlink currently offers three iterations of its dish with different features. We recommend the Standard kit since it’s best used in residential and most portable use cases. The Mini is for those interested in an even more portable option and not home internet. The Flat, High-Performance dish is really only useful to mobile businesses, like shipping freighters or airlines.

Another part of what makes Starlink unique is that installation is entirely in the customer's hands. The kits are engineered to be intuitive and work right out of the box. If you’re looking for a more permanent installation in your home, you’ll need some extra equipment and tools. Starlink sells mounts and longer cables but does not provide professional installation. Hiring third-party installers is possible, but from what we’ve seen on the web, these typically cost hundreds of dollars.

T-Mobile 5G Home Internet is light on equipment. All it requires is a small gateway device that you place in your home, which is also a Wi-Fi router. T-Mobile recommends putting the device near a window to get the best signal. Customers with bigger homes should consider the Plus plan, which has a higher-powered Wi-Fi device and a mesh device to extend your home network even further.

Both Starlink and T-Mobile’s home internet plans feature unlimited data, so you don’t have to worry about the possibility of overage charges. However, like any internet provider, unlimited data usually comes with caveats.

Since Starlink and T-Mobile moderate the bandwidth of their network, customers that use an extraordinary amount of data within a month will be slowed down by the ISP. T-Mobile states that customers who use more than 1.2 terabytes of data within a month could be subject to slower speeds. Starlink also states it moderates bandwidth for heavy data users but doesn’t list a specific amount.

How these two technologies work makes a difference in how they’ll perform in your particular situation, and knowing how they work may help you decide what to do. Starlink delivers internet via thousands of low-earth orbit satellites. What makes it different from other satellites is the altitude at which they orbit, significantly cutting down on latency and making your internet much more responsive. It’s still slower than wired cable and fiber, but the technology is still evolving, so there’s room for improvement. For Starlink to work, it needs an open view of the sky with few obstructions. This can be a problem for homes surrounded by woods or mountains.

5G home internet works off the same mobile signal that your smartphone does. The wireless gateway features a stronger antenna that picks up the signal, acting as a permanent hotspot for your home. Like your smartphone, your signal strength is based on your proximity to your carrier’s cellular tower.

Today, we’re fortunate to have multiple options for rural internet throughout the country. Starlink is the more expensive option, but its satellite service covers you basically anywhere in the United States, no matter how remote you are. T-Mobile 5G Home Internet is more affordable and is just as fast. However, while its reach covers a large portion of the country, it’s not everywhere, and the more rural you are, the worse your signal and speed will be.

For a deeper dive into these providers, read our full reviews: