This is a follow-up on an earlier post which was an observation of a change in the mobile data service I was seeing from Mint Mobile here in Houston. I had another occasion to be off-site today, although much closer to home.
Expecting to have to kill a little time this afternoon, I brought my laptop along, expecting to do a few things as I waited for our Subaru to be inspected. Enabling the 4G WWAN, an initial speed test turned up a very lame result.
Transitioning to tethered to the hotspot of my Pixel 8a, that same test measured a much more impressive 300+ Mbps.
I’ve now recognized that I’m seeing my Pixel 8a indicate 5G UC almost everywhere and all the time. That suggests that T-Mobile, owner of Mint Mobile, has made something of a transition in this market. That change has rendered some 4G connected devices dramatically lesser clients on the network.
Based on this, it seems silly to keep the X1 Carbon on the Mint Mobile account, unless I upgrade the WWAN card to a 5G capable model.