My Week With AT&T Internet Air: How Did It Fare?

5G home internet has been taking the broadband world by storm lately. One report found that 89% of new broadband subscriptions over the past two years came from just two 5G providers: T-Mobile and Verizon. When AT&T threw its hat in the ring this year, I was excited -- and quickly disappointed -- to see how it compared.

I have as friendly a testing environment as you’ll ever find for an internet provider. I live alone in a one-bedroom apartment, and the list of connected devices I own is shockingly short: just my iPhone SE, Apple TV 4K and MacBook Pro that I use to work from home. That's not much strain to put on a Wi-Fi network, and even so, AT&T Internet Air couldn’t handle it.

That's why I have a hard time recommending the service to anyone. AT&T’s wireless internet connection consistently delivered download speeds below 10Mbps -- a far cry from the 90 to 300Mbps it advertises. That said, wireless internet speeds are more dependent on location than wired options like cable and fiber, so your experience may be much better than mine was. (Users on AT&T’s sub-reddit reported speeds in the 150-to-300Mbps range.)

There were things I liked about AT&T Internet Air -- namely, the easy setup and useful app -- but that’s like saying I like everything about a car except the fact that it can’t go above 25 miles an hour. Internet providers have one job -- to deliver a fast, reliable connection -- and on that front, AT&T Internet Air was an unequivocal bust. 

Read more: The best internet providers for 2024

Joe Supan / CNET

Setting up AT&T Internet Air

All in all, it only took me 11 minutes to set up AT&T Internet Air. It truly couldn’t have been simpler. The box only comes with two items: a gateway device and a power outlet. I followed the instructions in the box, downloaded AT&T’s Smart Home Manager app and scanned the QR code on the device. 

The app suggested that I place the gateway device near a window and facing west if possible. I was able to find a spot that checked both boxes near my desk, where I’d need the strongest internet speeds possible. Once I’d landed on a location, the app ran a quick test and gave me the approval. I was now ready to test out the connection. 

AT&T Internet Air speed and reliability

There’s no way around it: AT&T Internet Air’s speeds were incredibly disappointing and basically unusable for most people. 

After dozens of speed tests throughout the week, it averaged 5.86Mbps download speed and 9.87Mbps upload speed. The highest download speed I got at any point was 10.63Mbps, while upload speeds topped out at 14.38Mbps. At the same time, my $50 Connect More plan through Xfinity -- advertised as 300Mbps download -- returned average speeds of 321/109Mbps. 

AT&T Internet Air’s latency was also very high, with an average ping rate of 298ms. That’s bad news if you plan on doing any online gaming, where 40ms or lower is considered ideal. 

AT&T says that users typically experience download speeds between 90 and 300Mbps and upload speeds between 8 and 30Mbps. My upload speeds fell within that range, but I never came close to 90Mbps download. The highest I got was 14.38Mbps. (I used Ookla for all of my speed tests, which is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

Wireless internet like AT&T Internet Air or T-Mobile Home Internet is inherently more erratic than a wired connection like cable or fiber. Because it transmits data wirelessly from a cellular tower, it’s more vulnerable to network congestion and weather disruption. That’s why router placement is particularly important -- if you don’t have a clear line to the nearest tower, your internet connection will suffer.

But I did have a clear line. I was able to find a spot for the router right against a window that faced west, just like I was instructed during setup. The problem didn’t seem to be the location of my home, either: AT&T’s coverage map shows the entire city of Seattle blanketed in 5G+ speeds, which it describes as its fastest tier. 

AT&T’s coverage map indicates that I should have been able to access AT&T’s fastest speed tier.

AT&T

I tried moving the router to a few different locations over the course of testing, but speeds never improved. In fact, it got even slower when I moved it to another room or away from the window. AT&T recommended calling customer support to help determine the best spot for the device based on where the closest cell tower is. 

Wireless internet providers like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon all include a caveat in the fine print that says they may temporarily slow your speeds if the network is congested. That might explain my test results if they were all happening at “internet rush hour” -- the hours between 7 and 11 p.m. when traffic is highest. But I tested AT&T Internet Air at various times throughout the day and never saw much of a difference. 

How was it using AT&T Internet Air?

If anyone can get by with slow internet speeds, it’s me. I live alone, and I don’t do any bandwidth-stressing activities like online gaming. I only have three devices connected to the internet: my phone, laptop and streaming device. 

But even with that minimal setup, AT&T Internet Air struggled to pull its weight. Zoom meetings at work were reliably unreliable, to the point where I had to switch back over to my Xfinity connection several times. Working in Google Docs, the connection would routinely drop out, causing me to wait a few seconds before I could continue writing this review. 

AT&T Internet Air’s range was basically limited to the room with the router. When I ran speed tests in my bedroom -- one wall away from the router -- my connection slowed to around 1Mbps download and upload. 

It was a frustrating experience, and I found myself switching back over to Xfinity or cellular data on my phone every time I wanted to do something like watch a YouTube video from the group chat or take a FaceTime call. 

I don’t need gig speeds -- I probably don’t even really need 100Mbps speeds -- but I do need at least 15Mbps, which is what Netflix recommends for streaming in 4K. Unfortunately, AT&T Internet Air failed to clear even that low bar. 

How does AT&T Internet Air compare to other 5G internet providers?

5G home internet has taken off over the past few years, and AT&T is later to the party than competitors like T-Mobile Home Internet and Verizon 5G Home Internet. In general, using 5G technology for home internet has been an unequivocal success. A survey from J.D. Power released over the summer found that customer satisfaction is higher for wireless customers than cable or fiber, even though it received lower performance scores.

“A lot of the concerns I had heard about fixed wireless access were that it's just never going to be as fast as fiber,” Carl Lepper, senior director of the technology, media and telecommunications intelligence practice at J.D. Power, told me at the time. 

“But for a lot of people, affordability trumps that. And it’s not often that you need superfast speeds, depending on how you're using your internet.”

5G home internet often reaches rural households where cable and fiber aren’t available, and it’s a significant step up from the satellite or DSL service that those users are typically stuck with. And because 5G providers are cellphone carriers first and foremost, they offer significant savings when you bundle home internet with a cellphone plan. 

Those savings aren’t quite as significant with AT&T as they are with T-Mobile and Verizon, but paying $47 a month for home internet is still a solid deal. If you’re not bundling with a cellphone plan, AT&T Internet Air is on the expensive side, and there’s no guarantee that it will make up for it with faster speeds -- as my week with AT&T showed. 

The verdict: AT&T Internet Air is still worth a try in some cases

After those disappointing results, you might be surprised to learn that I still wouldn’t swear off AT&T Internet Air completely. Other customers have clearly gotten faster speeds than I did -- Reddit users regularly report speeds north of 700Mbps -- and there’s a chance my apartment is just in a particularly bad location for the service.

Unlike T-Mobile Home Internet, there’s no free trial with AT&T Internet Air, so you’ll be out at least $60 if you sign up and find out the speeds aren’t fast enough. I’d still recommend going with T-Mobile or Verizon first if you want to try out 5G home internet, but AT&T Internet is still worth a shot if you’re stuck with limited options.