AT&T Internet Air, starting at $60 per month, delivers internet service to your home via AT&T's 4G LTE and 5G wireless networks rather than traditional wired offerings like fiber or cable. We like its simple pricing structure, ease of use, and solid service, but would prefer to see more pricing tiers, quicker upload speeds, and broader availability. AT&T Internet Air provides speeds that cater to moderate users, but T-Mobile 5G Home Internet, starting at $25 per month, remains a better choice if it's available where you live, thanks to its unlimited data, bigger footprint, and multiple pricing options.

Availability, Plans, and Rates

Your journey to AT&T Internet Air starts by searching the company's website for your street address. AT&T says the service is available in 47 states, where it focuses on regions with the proper coverage and capacity to ensure a good experience for home internet users and existing wireless customers in the area. AT&T Internet Air is only available in areas not served by AT&T Fiber. This is similar to Verizon's home 5G service, which is only available in areas not covered by its Fios service. If AT&T's website confirms availability in your area, you can move to step two.

There is a single plan from which to choose: It costs $60 per month after a $5 discount for automatic payments. Paperless billing is required. Taxes and fees are extra, but there are no overage fees, no price increases for the first 12 months, no equipment fees, and no annual contract. You can score a 20% discount on the monthly price ($47 per month) if you bundle Internet Air with a qualifying unlimited AT&T wireless voice plan. However, to take advantage of this discount, you must bundle the two services within 24 hours of placing the order for Internet Air.

AT&T offers a combined modem and router called the All-Fi Hub. It's a generic piece of equipment that almost resembles a rugby ball. The original model, which we received for review, is designated as the CGW450. AT&T is now giving customers an updated model, designated the BGW530, which more closely resembles a standard tower-shaped router. AT&T says the routers offer the same experience and that the only thing setting them apart is their design. You can rent a Wi-Fi extender for an additional $10 per month.

AT&T claims Internet Air customers can expect to see download speeds between 90Mbps and 300Mbps and upload speeds between 8Mbps and 30Mbps.

(Credit: Eric Zeman)

For comparison, T-Mobile has four plans ranging from $25 to $75 per month. The lowest-priced option is basically an insurance policy in case your main internet provider cuts out. It delivers up to 130GB of service over seven days for $25. The $55, $65, and $75 plans all qualify for discounts if you use autopay and bundle a voice line. They offer the same 12-month pricing guarantee, along with unlimited data and speeds between 87Mbps and 415Mbps down and 12Mbps to 56Mbps up, depending on which plan and router you choose. T-Mobile's pricing includes taxes and fees.

Verizon has two plans that cost $60 and $80 per month. These drop to $35 and $45, respectively, with autopay and a qualifying wireless voice line. The $60 plan can handle Full HD video streaming and includes a two-year price lock, while the $80 plan supports 4K video streaming and includes a three-year price lock. Verizon says speeds on its $80 plan run as high as 1Gbps. We have yet to test it.

For those who live truly far afield from wired and even wireless networks, the best option might be Starlink. Starlink, which is powered by low-orbit satellites and is available across the entire US, requires an up-front equipment cost of $349. Its residential service costs $80 per month for unlimited deprioritized data or $120 per month for fully unlimited data. You can expect download speeds between 25Mbps and 220Mbps and upload speeds between 5Mbps and 20Mbps.

Setup: Exceedingly Simple

I received the CGW450 All-Fi Hub in a large box. It includes everything you need, which is a little more than the Hub itself and the power cable. Paperwork included with the Hub provides a QR code that you can scan for the required AT&T Smart Home Manager app (available for Android and iOS). The app provides the directions you need to get going.

(Credit: AT&T/PCMag)

You first need to create an account via the app. Once you do, you can use your phone to wander through your home to find the best location for the Hub. This corresponds to the spot in your home that's closest to the nearest AT&T cell tower. AT&T suggests starting at the highest point in your home that faces southwest. In my home, that happens to be in a second-story bedroom, which may not be a convenient spot for everyone to place a piece of networking equipment. This is similar to the setup instructions for T-Mobile 5G Home, which have you find the nearest cell tower through the app and then position the hub facing that direction.

Once you've located the best spot, it's time to plug the Hub into a wall outlet. I appreciate that the Hub's power cable is a good 10 feet long. The Hub needs a good 10 minutes to boot, find and connect to the macro cellular network, configure itself, and, eventually, offer access via Wi-Fi.

(Credit: AT&T/PCMag)

The Hub's front features an LED display in the center and a notification light along the bottom edge. These two sets of lights let you know the status of the Hub and the network. For example, if you see the display's LEDs lights moving in a wave from left to right, that indicates the Hub is searching for AT&T's network. If the status bar is solid green, you have an excellent signal and are good to go. The display can also indicate the current top upload and download speeds, whether you're connected to 4G or 5G, the security status, and if the Hub is receiving an update. Once you learn to decode what all the status indicators mean, it can be easy to tell what's going on with your internet from across the room at a glance.

(Credit: Eric Zeman)

The rear panel is what you'd call the router's business end. It's where all the ports are located. The back has two odd-shaped sections carved out of the white plastic casing, one near the top for ventilation and another near the bottom to hold the ports. The Hub includes a dedicated WPS button, a USB-A port, a power port with accompanying LED, a 1Gb Ethernet port with LED, a 10Gb Ethernet port with LED, and a reset button.

The WPS button lets you securely link a device, such as a work laptop, with the Hub. It acts like a Bluetooth pairing button in that you press it, it starts blinking, you use your device's Wi-Fi menu to pair, and make the connection. The Ethernet ports are helpful if you want to provide a wired connection to a device like a media hub, gaming console, or secondary Wi-Fi router.

(Credit: AT&T/PCMag)

There are two ways to connect to the router. You can enter the credentials from the back of the router into your Wi-Fi menu, or you can scan the QR code on the back panel to enter these details automatically. Further, you can send access to others through the Smart Home Manager app. The Hub creates a temporary network with a temporary password. You don't have to rename the network and set your own password, but AT&T strongly recommends that you do so (so do we, for that matter). In fact, the default action once you've activated the service via the app is to rename it.

Once you're up and running, the Smart Home Manager app allows you to control every aspect of the router and your service. You can view connected devices, set device priorities, view connection status details, and more.

Performance: Not as Fast as Advertised

I tested AT&T Internet Air in New Jersey. In general, the company provides solid service in my area. It offers its mid-band 5G+ service, which runs on AT&T's C-band spectrum (band n77). It balances midrange speed with broad coverage. AT&T's high-band 5G+ service, which offers the fastest speeds, is not available where I live.

(Credit: Eric Zeman)

With the AT&T All-Fi Hub positioned in a second-story bedroom, I took speed and signal readings in the basement, on the first floor, and on the second floor. I performed the tests multiple times throughout the day over a period of one month. I also connected several different device types to the network, including a laptop, a tablet, a phone, and a media streaming stick.

Phones measure signal strength in decibel-milliwatts (dBm) and depict this on your device by showing a series of bars, usually one to five, with one being the weakest signal and five being the strongest. A more accurate way to assess signal strength is by using the actual reading. Thankfully, the All-Fi Hub displays the current signal strength it is receiving from the network. Signal readings that fall in the -65dBm to -85dBM range are strong, while readings in the -85dBm to -100dBm range are good, and anything at or below -120dBm is rated as poor. Most of us are also familiar with using megabits per second (Mbps) to calculate speed. Here are the results:

The highest speed rating I recorded on any device connected to the router was 289Mbps on an iPhone 16 Pro Max, which is just about the advertised speed limit of 300Mbps. The corresponding signal was quite strong at -67dBm. The slowest download speed I got was a lowly 1Mbps. The average was about 75Mbps, which is below the 90Mbps floor that AT&T advertises. Uploads fared a bit worse. Though AT&T advertises uploads as swift as 30Mbps, I never achieved higher than 23Mbps, saw a low of 1Mbps, and averaged 8Mbps.

While the downlink speeds are generally quick enough to download standard documents, media files like TV shows in excess of 1GB were much slower to funnel down from the web. I didn't have any trouble streaming video on my laptop, tablet, or phone, but my media streamer (located on the same floor as the All-Fi Hub) often got stuck mid-stream, particularly in the evenings. For me, however, the upload speeds were the larger problem. As a photographer, I often sync my photo library with the cloud. It's not uncommon for me to upload or sync 20GB to 50GB of photos at a time. With an average upload speed of 8Mbps, this took a long, long time. If you're a heavy gamer, this is not the ISP for you.

In comparison, I use Verizon Fios for my personal internet service. I pay for the 1Gbps service and routinely clock download speeds of 940Mbps and upload speeds of 400Mbps over my home Wi-Fi. Clearly, this is a better option for me. If wired services like Fios aren't available to you, however, a service like AT&T Internet Air might be the right choice—as long as you're not a heavy media user.

Verdict: Fine for Light Browsing and Streaming

AT&T Internet Air can provide your home with 5G-based internet in cases where wired services aren't an option. It's available in select pockets across 47 states, though T-Mobile and Verizon have bigger service footprints for their competing services. While AT&T's single plan makes things simple, we prefer the multiple plan options and broader discounts available from T-Mobile and Verizon. And while the speeds are good enough to handle activities like browsing and streaming HD content, if you upload lots of media, you're better off with a wired service if one is available where you need connectivity.