The reliability is definitely a bigger question, jitter a bit more questionable, but as far as latency goes 5G fixed wireless can be just fine. YMMV, but on a lot of spots around my town it's pretty comparable latency/jitter-wise as my home fiber connection to similar hosts. And connecting home is often <5ms throughout the city.
I was considering my cell phone and hotspot experiences (not 5G fixed wireless.) I suppose that has some amount of prioritization happening in order to provide a "stable" experience. My experiences with LTE/5G/5GUW have varied wildly based on location and time.
Fixed wireless sometimes operates on dedicated channels and priorities.
My experiences on portable devices have also seen some mixture of performance, but I'm also on a super cheap MVNO plan. Friends on more premium plans often get far more consistent experiences.
5G can be extremely fast. I get 600 MBit over cellular at home.
Is your T-Mobile underprovisioned? Where I am, T-Mobile 5G is 400Mbps at 2am, but slows to 5-10Mbps on weekdays at lunchtime and during rush hours, and on weekends when the bars are full.
Not to mention that the T-Mobile Home Internet router either locks up, or reboots itself at least twice a day.
I put up with the inconvenience because it's either $55 to T-Mobile, $100 to Verizon for even less 5G bandwidth, or $140 the local cable company.
Probably. My area used to be a T-Mobile dead zone 5 years ago.
I also have Verizon.
Choice of service varies based on location heavily from my experience. I’m a long time big time camper and I’ve driven through most corners of most Western states:
- 1/3 will have NO cellular service
- 1/3 will have ONLY Verizon. If T-Mobile comes up, it’s unusable
- 1/3 remaining will have both T-Mobile and Verizon
My Verizon is speed capped so I can’t compare that. T-Mobile works better in more urban areas for me, but it’s unpredictable. In a medium sized costal town in Oregon, Verizon might be better but I will then get half gigabit T-Mobile in a different coastal town in California.
One thing I have learned is that those coverage maps are quite accurate.
…and we only pay for 500 MBit for my home fiber. (Granted, also 500 Mbit upload.)
(T-Mobile, Southern California)