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T-Mobile Ends Contracts and Subsidies
AlphaWolf_HK writes "In what I see as a refreshing change, T-Mobile, the fourth largest carrier in the U.S., has made sweeping changes to its service, ending both phone subsidies and service contracts. Its CEO said, 'Here's the deal: If we suck this month, go somewhere else. If we're good, stay with us.' As part of that change, the new base plan will include unlimited access, including voice, text, and data. Data will be restricted to edge speeds after 500MB with no overage costs, but can be upgraded to 2.5GB for $10, or unlimited for $20. Portable Wi-Fi hotspot usage is also unrestricted for no additional cost. In addition, LTE services just went live in eight markets. As is already standard practice with T-Mobile, you are free to bring your own device. To keep customers from having to front the full cost of the phone with unsubsidized plans, they'll let people pay off phones in installments. They're also getting the iPhone 5 next month for $650."
A move in the right direction.
That's more then Comcast prefers I use.
It is supposed to be 500MB. You don't usually "upgrade" from 500GB to 2.5GB of data for $10 a month.
It sounds like T-Mobile is going to be offering reasonable, attractive cell phone plans. Wow. I'm genuinely surprised that such a large carrier is moving in this direction. Good on them.
The best plans, the best prices, the best phones, and the hottest spokesgirl.
Upgrade from 500 GB to 2.5 GB? Is that supposed to be "by 2.5 GB?"
~Jarmihi
I can only hope the big 2 will follow along.
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
This is a bold step for T-Mobile and I hope that they succeed. However I am somewhat concerned as I have already seen too many people complain that they'd have to foot the bill for the full cost of the phone. The math would may prove to be difficult for people who are not good at it.
Nice to see a carrier doing the right thing. I bought a iPhone 5 unlocked, from Apple (yeah, I know) so that I could use it on T-mobile. I have never had any complaints about T-mobiles service, and I have been with them for a freaking long time.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
...the $600 price tags on phones. As a T-Mobile customer, I hope this isn't a sign of them about to go out of business.
They are the weakest of the Big 4 and are going all in. I hope it works, if only to keep AT&T / Verizon honest.
However I am somewhat concerned as I have already seen too many people complain that they'd have to foot the bill for the full cost of the phone. The math would may prove to be difficult for people who are not good at it.
They could phrase it like this:
Pay Later: $199 down + $15/month for 24 months
Pay Now: $549
The down payment on the Pay Later choice would reasonably match the price with contract on other carriers.
If they really were thinking about customers, the contract would be a no-penalty cancel-anytime-you-want contract that would lock you in for a specific price for a non-trivial amount of time.
I'm skeptical and will stick with AT&T out of laziness for a while. Prove me wrong T-Mobile and I'll switch. But even though cellular has been one-sided customer-screwing contracts since the inception of the service - contracts can actually protect _both_ parties if you do them right. No contract == No guarantee.
Lobbying, mostly. The barrier to starting a new mobile telco (or even a traditional ISP) is massive, although the limited availability of spectrum is also a problem. If you are not familiar with the concept of lobbying, that is because it is known as corruption in most other countries.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Is ending subsidization really going to appeal to the mass consuming public? How many teenagers have $650 for a new iPhone? You'd think they'd offer some kind of optional secondary loan plan where you pay off a little bit every month, or owe the whole amount if you want to change carriers.
you didn't even need to click into the article to see that is exactly what they are doing, summary itself says
To keep customers from having to front the full cost of the phone with unsubsidized plans, they'll let people pay off phones in installments.[
If only there as an article that talks about T-Mobile doing that very thing~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Tethering is only included in the limited plans.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I second that. Also can someone find the asshat that is posting this shit and BREAK HIS FUCKING LEGS?
Or, y'know, you could chill the fuck out and ignore him. I browse at 0 all the time (with ACs like me down to -1 by default), and I wouldn't have even seen any trace of this thread if you didn't open your goddamned mouth. Now, thanks to you, there's a post on this thread that started at 1 and that some asshole moderator actually modded UP to 2, leaving an abbreviated message link that points everyone to the damn thread. So yeah. Way to fucking go, dipshit.
I left T-Mobile at the end of last year when my contract expired, and have been using the MVNOs that use the T-Mobile airwaves on pre-paid (PTel specifically) to save money. It's been working well, and was much cheaper than T-Mobile's previous pre-paid offerings for what I needed. However I discovered there's some missing features that pre-paid doesn't give you and no one really points out until you already switched:
* no call forwarding (for google voice voicemail)
* no visual voicemail
* no short code sms texting (except often they'll allow Twitter and Facebook)
Now that T-Mobile's prices are more in line with their MVNOs (and cheaper if you have multiple lines) and they don't even offer contracts, does this mean all those features that you lost going pre-paid would be available again? While none of those features would have been worth the extra cost of a contract, it would be a great reason to pick T-Mobile over the other smaller pre-paid operators. I'll have to call them and see if their CSRs even know the answers to these questions (I doubt it yet, someone will have to be the guinea pig), but it does make me want to switch back if that's the case.
Reading is *hard*!
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Why is this? Other than 'muricans are dim fucks that put up with any shit?
The problem is that one can't just start his own cell phone network, with blackjack and hookers, because an oligopoly of four companies have snapped up effectively all the spectrum in the cellular bands. One must either put up with what the spectrum cartel offers or do without cellular service. If you believe I've presented a false dilemma, please feel free to explain your third option.
Umm, yeah. That's exactly what they do.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Let's check out the fine print (is unlimited data really unlimited? etc., etc.) but if T-Mobile is honestly offering unlimited calls, data, tethering, and text without a contract then NOW you can vote with your dollars and switch. If you miss this opportunity to support them on this and send a real message to the other carriers, then you have no right to complain about the state of cell phone service in the US.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I hope the FTC takes note of this. Good things are happening because companies have to innovate to compete instead of take refuge in mega-mergers.
Great. Now all they need to do is expand coverage - as much as I want to switch from Verizon to T-Mobile, it won't do me much good if half the time I can't get a signal.
Question for anyone with T-Mobile currently: I've been talking with my wife about switching to the prepaid, 100 minutes/month, unlimited text/data plan, but a big hangup is that her hometown is in the "Service Partner" coverage area on the T-Mobile coverage map. What data speeds/caps do the prepaid plans in service partner areas, if they are allowed to use data at all?
I am currently a T-mobile customer, and had a chance to look over the plans. Very excited by this new approach, and hope other providers follow suit.
It's important to note however that tethering (Smartphone Mobile HotSpot, or SMH) is not unlimited, even with the unlimited data plans. The unlimited data plan included 500MB of tethered data, and you can buy more (apparently for $10 per 2GB, but not confirmed.) If you're primarily interested in tethered data, it might make sense to buy the 2.5GB plan, which costs $10 less, and includes 2.5GB of tethered data.
Unfortunately, it looks like T-mobile may be eliminating some of it's other low cost plans with this move. My current plan is $30/mo for more 1500 talk/text minutes, and 30MB of data. 30MB is enough to check a map when I need it, and I can use wifi for my typical data use.
If you have concerns about T-Mobile's coverage, you can supplement it by purchasing an inexpensive daily use phone from Verizon. Pay $2/day when you're traveling outside a T-Mobile coverage zone.
FINALLY, it would appear the free market is starting to work its magic. It's almost inevitable that phone calls and mobile internet access will be free or almost next to free some day. That day appears a little sooner thanks to this news.
However, I still think it should be a government service, since like roads, it's basic infrastructure. Maybe the government and Google (for the expertise) can get together at some point to make that work.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
No contracts may open the door for me to see what offerings they have. I'm never going to sign a 2 year contract for anything ever again. Burned by those a couple times, that's it. They're simply a legal document allowing a company to take money from me for service I haven't used.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I used to go through 500MB easily in one surfing session before NoScript. Webmasters using modern tools think nothing of sending you whatever you will accept, such as a ten megabyte video streaming file to open up and play on the side as an ad for cars or some movie trailer...
Once people begin being charged for this, they are apt to adopt technologies which block ads, and webmasters-paid by the ad transmitted-will do all in their power to send anything only after they have confirmed the ad streams are transferring. Many business sites have already adopted such technology, and they will be very expensive to visit.
I would almost like to see NoScript start flashing a dollar sign next to sites which need to be enabled. Then load the executive computers with NoScript so the executives who hired the webmaster will see what their customers are seeing. One of the biggest problems we have had on the internet is the executives are generally running on high-speed local networks using a monolithic browsing system and do not get a true "customer experience" when visiting their own site.
But it can also be argued that the CEO of large corporations time is too valuable to be wasted having a customer experience.
I wonder if the next big wave of lawsuits will be over people "stealing" content from the web because they adopted ad-refusal technologies.
I have already lived long enough to see lawsuits where unauthorized access to as little as a song invoked thousands of dollars in legal fees, while tax havens specifically crafted to avoid tax collections, operating in the Caribbean and Indonesian islands, continue to operate. This one-sided law is wearing heavily on my respect for law - its seeming more and more like organized muggery every day.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I'm on their older prepaid (no-contract) plan. $30/mo for 100 minutes, unlimited text, and unlimited data (first 5GB at best speeds, then down to Edge). Kinda sad that it's gone now.
From the t-mobile web page, below the big banner saying "No annual contract":
General Terms: At participating locations. Domestic only. Credit approval, $35/line activation fee, and two-year contract with up to $200/line early cancellation fee required; deposit may apply. If you switch plans you may be bound by existing or extended term (including early cancellation provisions) and/or charged an up to $200 fee. You may be unable to switch to some plans.
Maybe it's just a glitch but I wouldn't bank on it.
For what it's worth: I'm a T-mobile customer. This new deal would cost me $5/month more than I pay now. It would get more but it's more than I don't actually use.
I'd feel more confidence in their announcement if I hadn't recently abandoned a dispute with T-Mobile, after they unilaterally changed the terms of my contract. I was promised on three separate occasions by T-Mobile staff that I could change my minutes/month plan at any time without any fees or changes to my plan, until I actually tried to do it. Then, surprise! they changed that clause, and now I'd have to restart my contract over with a new 24-month commitment. When I asked to talk to their service department, I was given a physical address and told that the post is the only way to contact them. And would you believe they never wrote me back? I'm used to dealing with soulless bureaucrats at big companies like this, but the level of disregard and complete indifference I was shown by T-Mobile was something very special.
Most likely they won't make any money from interest. The money comes from selling the phone at MSRP instead of discounted or even from the marketing budget as it really is an alternate (but more consumer friendly) way of locking you in for 2 years. Charging a separate line item for interest would be silly from a marketing perspective.
carriers will start advertising service differences in main stream media
You mean like Verizon's "there's a map for that" ads, back when AT&T was still EDGE-only in a lot of markets, followed by AT&T's Christo-inspired ads?
In case you haven't noticed (by reading the summary) you can now do these things with t-mobile.
http://www.justsaypictures.com/images/stupid-europeans-or-are-they-americans.jpg
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
I'd say so. I just switched to the new plan this morning. I still even have roaming access, which I *think* (correct me if I'm wrong) isn't available on MVNO's.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
..... are shockingly expensive.
It amazes me that in the US you're expected to pay extra for voicemail, SMS packages, tethering etc. These are the basic services that make even a dumb phone usable. Without them, you may as well be sending smoke signals.
I'm currently with 3 Ireland. I paid €100 for my HTC Explorer. I pay €20 per month for unlimited SMS messages, unlimited data, unlimited calls to numbers on the same network, unlimited weekend calls to any number. Every time I top up by €20, I get €10 free credit. I get free tethering to my laptop. The only time my credit is used is when I call numbers during the week that aren't on the 3 network.
Ireland is a small country with four main networks. Competition is pretty tough, but having a mobile phone is pretty cheap. My 8 year old nieces and nephews have their own phones, and pay for the majority of their credit themselves from pocket money etc.
One of the universal rules of happiness is always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual
The carrier who would be best positioned (at least in Europe) to offer a decent data roaming option due to their relationship with the German carrier of the same name, and who partially owns them, only provides the insane price of $15 per MB (yes, per megabyte) for international data roaming. For comparison, Verizon and AT&T provide 100 MB for $20...
"You'd think they'd offer some kind of optional secondary loan plan where you pay off a little bit every month"
Oh man. You deserve every bit of ridicule that comes your way.
Is not it the job of banks to lend money? Use your credit card to finance your purchase. If you have no financial credit and you don't have a credit card, why are you buying expensive gadgets?, buy a simple phone because obviously you should not be wasting money on them
Of course having competition requires good regulations.
Utterly wrong, and ignorant of the very definition of "competition". Usually regulation works to PREVENT competition by helping a large entity prevent smaller competitors from succeeding.
the Justice department hadn't successfully blocked AT&T's purchase of T-Mobile.
In that case it weakened the ability of T-Mobile and AT&T to compete well with Verizon. Healthy competition is not about the sheer quantity of competitors.
AT&T claims the cap on data use was a direct result of the merger being prevented. How did that regulatory action "help" AT&T customers?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
T-mobile wants $457.99 for a Nexus 4 if purchased outright or $49.99 down and $17/mo for 24 months, which adds up to precisely 457.99. So they aren't charging interest, although they are charging a $108.99 premium over the Google Play store, which is definitely a stupid carrier trick. Either that or Google is subsidizing the phones to consumers.
The base plan is 500 MB of LTE/HSPA+/3G (whatever you can get where you are), then it's throttled to 2G/EDGE once you go past that. I like that in this situation. T-Mobile is advertising the amount of high speed data in big letters, rather than in the small text under the words "unlimited data". They're also making overage costs disappear. And you can pay for unlimited high speed data, and for unlimited high speed data with tethering, and less exorbitant than usual rates.
It's really good that one of the big carriers are doing something different. I hope it works out for them.
And, T-Mobile supports IPv6.
This will set in motion for T-Mobile to be bought out by someone else so that the other carriers and their mandatory 2 year contracts don't look bad for consumers. Even if the FCC blocks ATT from buying out T-Mobile we'll see some other group that isn't currently a large player in mobile phone networks buy them out and re-institute 2 year contracts.
The carriers simply won't stand for this, even with T-Mobile being the smallest of the big carriers.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I believe they've laid it out that the first 500MB (or 2.5GB if you went that route) is 4g speed (or whatever is the fastest available to you), after which you're dropped back to EDGE speed. I'm surprised they placed a 500MB cap on the "Unlimited" data plan for tethering, rather than the 2.5GB available at the next lower tier. Supposedly they offer more tethering services, but I'm having trouble finding details on their website.
+1 Disagree
Do a search on their website for prepaid.
Why is this?
Demand. Americans don't country-hop very much compared to Europeans.
Also, things have improved quite a bit. I'm currently on a T-Mobile prepay plan that gives me their sort-of-unlimited-but-they-throttle-the-speed-after-5GB data, unlimited texts, and a paltry 100 voice minutes for $30. My wife has their 1200 minutes or texts plan (but almost no data) for the same amount of money. Sure, I need to buy about $10-15 worth of additional minutes at 10 cents/minute, but it's still a big improvement over what I was paying for inferior service a few years ago. And if the information on the Orange UK website is representative, even the Europeans would find those plans attractive.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
So now they have switched to having just one plan that costs $50/month. That's $600/year. If they think I'm going to pay them this much they are insane. Sure, there are all these phone junkies who are on the phone all the time and are able to use a web browser on a 3" screen, but for quite a few normal people a cell phone is kept mostly for emergencies. For now I apparently can still keep using my $10/year pay-as-you go plan, but if they make me switch, I'm leaving. Where? I have no idea.
I'm keeping an eye on this, and if it's for real, I may just have a new phone carrier!
I'm not particularly UNHAPPY with my cell carrier, but I really may just need to vote with my wallet.
The Digital Sorceress
1) You don't pay extra for voice mail and SMS on most networks. Maybe on some of the pre-pay small networks (who buy time for the bigger ones) but the plans these days seem to be all inclusive with those. Verizion, the company I'm with, only seems to have unlimited calls (to any number in the US at any time), and unlimited SMS. Also includes voicemail, 3-way calling, tethering, etc, etc. This is pretty standard near as I know.
2) Ireland is, as you say, a small country. It is just barely larger than West Virginia, which is the 41st state in size. The continental US is larger than the entirety of Europe. The plans we are talking about here offer calling, and roaming, around that entire area. What would it cost you to get a plan with unlimited calling (inbound and outbound, to all number) and roaming to Sweden, Spain, Germany, Italy, and so on?
I certainly won't say the US carriers are perfect, or even that good, but I think some of the people in the EU have a bit of a skewed view of just how large the US is and what area they are covering.
Can decide if this person should get down-voted for being an idiot, or up-voted to ensure the idiocy is on display and thoroughly mocked.
This signature is false.
Here's a thought. Maybe they don't want your business. If price is your main concern, you're either poor or cheap and neither of those is good for the T-Mobile bottom line. If their entire customer base is paying a minimum of $50 a month, the chances are good that a large percentage of them still aren't going to be using much more resources than you do with your $30 plan, so they increase profits while divesting themselves of cheapskate customers with no upsell potential.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
The base plan T-Mobile is touting is $50 per month for unlimited everything (500 MB data at 4G speed).
Wal-Mart sells a T-Mobile plan for $30 per month for unlimited text and data (5 GB data at 4G speed). The catch is that the plan has only 100 minutes of voice. But if you are willing to use Google Voice with Groove IP, you can use your data to talk. I have this setup and love it! Better still, if you're in WiFi range, you can stretch your WiFi even farther.
1) When my 2 years is up with AT&T this fall, can I take my AT&T iPhone 4S over to T-Mobile and use it there, since they both use SIMs?
2) How is T-Mobile's coverage in Orlando & the SF Bay Area? (Specifically, the Peninsula?)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
*protip:
Just buy the walmart POS, yank the SIM, and put it in your real phone. Enjoy the different price.
It sounds like T-mobile has the best purchasing experience. People shouldn't have to create a spreadsheet with a pivot table to find the best plan. Simple = good.
The problem with many carriers isn't the subsidy scam, but the confusion. The phone shows one price - but that is with plan X. But with plan Y it is a different price. Another phone shows the price including a mail-in rebate, but this one here has an instant rebate. They don't know how much the taxes are. This plan would be $A/month but you pay some amount for text messages, but this plan has unlimited text messages but is it worth it? What if I add my son to the plan?
There is no extra fee to use wifi calling on T-mobile.
So if you have a wifi network in your house you have already setup a call extender that can be used with T-mobile. It can be particularly nice if you travel outside of the US and want to call home. You get local US domestic rates.
You mean 4G speeds. It's still right there on their prepaid plan page. "$30 per month — Unlimited web and text with 100 minutes talk: 100 minutes talk | Unlimited text | First 5GB at up to 4G speeds"
The 500GB was a typo, but the 2.5GB is in fact correct.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Thoe plugs look like the behemoth German SchuKo plugs. But the beer looks a bit crap.
Have they yet received their Darwin Award?
Or maybe this is a Fraunhofer office party celebrating a new form of electricity that doesn't short in water? Or maybe they are bathing in distilled water(which could also be worthy of a Darwin Award)? Or very thin insulating full body suits?
There is only one level of stupidity in this picture but several other levels of potential genious!
The beer still looks crap.
20 minutes into the future
I'm holding my breath!
I don't think they support WiFi calling on phones they don't sell. It doesn't always work on modded phones either.
While I love T-Mobile I'm not sure I'd ever buy another phone from them. Their phones tend to be expensive (well, all the other major carriers are too). You can save quite a bit by buying from Google, or from some Asian supplier.
You're still on the hook to pay off the phone if you leave or it breaks or you lose it.
Yup, the nice thing about T-Mobile is that you can't get hit with per-MB charges, ever. The worst that can happen is you get throttled. That means you don't have to buy an extra-large plan "just in case" or check your data every other day.
Only Sprint offers a similar deal. Verizon and ATT just love the add-on charges. Back when I had Verizon I found myself having to over-spend on my plan just to avoid getting the surprise $600 phone bill. That is especially a big concern if you have kids. Sure, you can yell at them and it doesn't happen often, but it is cheaper to pay the extra $20/mo as "insurance." I resented this and am saving money and don't have to worry about the insurance at all...
They do, and the down payment, monthly service charge and early termination works out to be about the same as the big carriers.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
* no visual voicemail
You do get vvm on prepaid as an actual T-Mobile customer. You don't get transcription IIRC. You can't use MyAccount. You can use top-up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I will never, EVER use Tmobile. EVER. (yes, disgruntled). I had to cancel early due to moving and having absolutely NO coverage in my new location. Suddently, the early termination fee more than doubled for each of our phones. When I asked to speak to a supervisor, was told the guy I'm talking to was one. When I asked to speak to his boss, was told he's not available, but his name was "Fred" I asked for the last name, was specifically told that "Fred" has no last name. I HATE Tmobile with a passion, and repeatedly hope they go out of business in shame.
It's because our corporations pay many millions of dollars directly to the members of our government's legislative branch.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
For some background information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Mobile
:-(
It was funny to see all the historical mobile operators in France scramble to get similar offers out just based on rumors about what exactly Free will be doing.
Unfortunately, many people still don't understand the value of non-subsidized plans and prefer 1- or 2 year contracts because they get a free phone. Sigh
Wow, sounds almost exactly like what we have had in Finland for years now!
Seeing as how Wind Mobile is being sold, T-Mo should get into the Canadian market. It's logical, as Wind's towers use the same AWS spectrum as TMo (and largely, the same phone models). We need someone other than Robellus to buy Wind, to keep the market sane(ish).
But Maaa! Everyone else has a
I just put my wife on one of their new plans. We went in there very confused about why we'd want to pay essentially full retail price for a GS3 when I could get one from somewhere else for a lot less (paid in $20 increments over several months). They explained that the new plan takes the cost of the phone out of the plan itself (like the article said) and included all the data, voice, text, AND FULL INSURANCE with it. Essentially saying you buy the phone from us outright and we'll make sure you get to keep it while you pay it all off. I thought it was truly brilliant for once.
unlimited calling to any US mobile number, which is the bulk of most calls people tend to make
Do you mean "US" is the bulk, or "mobile" is the bulk? You'd be surprised at how many households among my extended-family survey sample still have land lines. A lot of Slashdot users seem to think it's zero, but I wouldn't be so quick to assume that, especially if there are kids in the house who are legally too young to have a job to pay for their own cell phone, and especially now that a VOIP land line from magicJack is $3/mo or less if you already have high-speed Internet.
Customer signs up for service and selects an iPhone 5 or other expensive phone, so Tmo "finances" it for them. Customer then cancels their service and stops paying for the phone. How do they get the balance of what the customer owes them for the phone? It sounds like they're just getting creative about what they call their contracts and subsidies. If you can still get an iPhone without paying the full $650 up front, I'd say that's still a contract you're signing, just perhaps a contract shorter than 24 months.
...they collect it the same way AT&T collects if you cancel your contract prematurely. They turn you over to a collection agency and screw your credit rating if you don't pay. I think the point is that once you pay off your phone, you're done, and your bill for service is(in theory) less than the phone-subsidizing competition. With AT&T, I'm paying for my subsidized phone forever.
I expect the manufacturers will hate this, as consumers will no longer be upgrading to "free" (subsidized) phones every two years. Not that that's a bad thing. When I got my iPhone, I crunched the numbers and a two year contract with AT&T worked out to be the best deal. But once that contract's up, I'll be looking hard at switching to a non-subsidizing service, assuming my phone is still working.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
It used to be that Visual Voicemail simply didn't work (you'd install their app, and it would say something like "can't connect") - and on their website, they explicitly had prepaid plans listed as not supporting this feature. This has changed sometime recently, though.
But you still can't set up Google Voice.
The no-contract plans do not allow voicemail forwarding - so if you currently use YouMail or an equivalent, you will be SOL by using T-Mobile.
I have already lived long enough to see lawsuits where unauthorized access to as little as a song invoked thousands of dollars in legal fees, while tax havens specifically crafted to avoid tax collections, operating in the Caribbean and Indonesian islands, continue to operate. This one-sided law is wearing heavily on my respect for law - its seeming more and more like organized muggery every day.
...
OH! Muggery...that's an m there...read something quite different at first.
Although come to think of it, in the context perhaps my initial mis-reading was more accurate...if not quite appropriate :o)
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
This looks to me like a preview of good things to come after Masayoshi Son and Softbank acquire a controlling stake in Sprint, which will also buy out Clearwire. T-Mobile better grab some market share before Softbank arrives. (Son was the upstart in Japan in the early 2000's who make things there very competitive.)
That's why my kids have Tracfone. Use up you minutes and you no talkee, no textee. Then they wait until next payment cycle to have a phone. It teaches management skills.
Best Buy tried similar shit. I was going for instant gratification when my ancient iPhone wouldn't hold a charge any longer, but when they said it was $450 for a no-contract unlocked phone, I started laughing. I thought she was joking. I said, you do know that they are $300 directly from Google, don't you? Then I remembered why I don't ever go to Best Buy.
I went home and ordered Monday from Google Play. I had it on Thursday. $150 is kinda pricey for that kind of instant gratification.
The only problem with this approach is that it is usually more expensive (no linkage to family plan, etc). Agree that it is a good teaching approach, though - maybe that makes it worth it in the end.
However, I think there is still a need for a legislative solution. We don't need to regulate plan offerings or anything like that. Instead, just let customers put a limit on their bill, which can be as low as whatever number was advertised on the window (which will need to include all taxes/fees). If the provider delivers any service in excess of that amount, the service is free (this isn't a payment plan - they can't charge for the service ever). Providers can of course cut off service or not deliver optional services that aren't going to be paid for until the next billing cycle.
The basis for providing a service should be a conscious agreement between buyer and seller. Anything else is little more than a scam. If the buyer doesn't realize they're buying something, then the sale is null and void.
Yes and no. Three years ago I would have agreed with you entirely, but the landscape has changed drastically. Prepaid is no longer necessarily more expensive and in fact oftentimes much cheaper. I switched from AT&T to Straight Talk last year and have way more service, the same coverage and the same network for the equal cost.
I paid off my contract in 2010 and for a year and a half I watched as my options open up. After paying off my phone subsidy, AT&T never reduced my bill. In fact, they instead raised the price of my text messages since I had no bundle option. Despite AT&T's incessant marketing, I refused to sign on for another "free" phone in return for two more years of indentured servitude. I bought my own phone and left AT&T and I will never again agree to another postpaid contract. I am now free to change providers any time I find a better deal or service plan that is better tailored to my usage patterns.
Are my kids' Tracfone's expensive? It depends on your criteria. I spend about $10 per month on average for each of their phones. Good luck finding any postpaid plan that costs so little; even as an add on. The price per minute is expensive, but the total cost is low. The added benefit is that it does teach responsibility, delayed self gratification, and prioritization. As they near high school, I may look into family prepaid plans.
As for a legislative approach. I believe that the market has finally responded to that need. The whole point of a postpaid account is that you can receive services you don't anticipate throughout the month. What you are advocating is essentially a prepaid account, paid in arrears. I do agree in principle, however, that you should be able to place restrictions on maximum liability for your account.
My post-paid plan had zero cost for the kids lines, actually, but it isn't a plan currently offered. That gets 500min/mo on each of the lines.
I do agree with you though. Plans are always changing, as are phones. When people tell me what phone they should get in six months I tell them to ask me again in six months. The same is true of plans. Last summer when I re-signed with T-Mo the value plans were the best option for my circumstances, but that could easily be different next time.
Still, $120/mo for unlimited voice and text on four lines, 2GB 3G data on two lines, 500MB 3G data on two lines, and unlimited 2G data on all lines is a VERY good deal. That would be hard to beat pre-paid assuming you needed all that data.
It sounds like you have the same plan with T-Mobile that a friend of mine has. For 4 lines, it is hard to beat. I spend about $70 for three phones, but the Tracfones are limited. My problem is that I have to use AT&T networks due to circumstances. T-Mobile's Wi-Fi calling is sporadic at my place of employment so that reduces my options to AT&T and MVNOs.
T-Mobile was my second choice and I may go that route when the kids are older and drop my landline. They are the most competitive of all the carriers.