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T-Mobile Brings Back Unlimited Data For All (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader shares a CNET report: T-Mobile is eliminating data plans for new customers -- and for current ones who opt in. The company is getting rid of all its wireless data plans and instead offering new customers one unlimited plan, T-Mobile said Thursday. Under the new plan, everyone will get unlimited talk, text and high-speed 4G LTE data. The company has also changed prices for unlimited. The first line will be $70 a month, the second line will cost $50 a month and additional lines will be $20 a month for up to eight lines with auto-pay turned on. The price is $5 more a month without auto-pay. For a family of four, the new plans will cost $40 a month per person. While this plan will benefit those looking for unlimited, it will cost more for people who have been subscribed to the lowest data plans. The current plan starts at $50 for 2GB of data per month. This means individual customers on its new plans will pay $20 more a month. But the new price is lower than the cost of unlimited right now. Today, T-Mobile customers who want unlimited pay $95 a month for an individual line.
Compare T-Mobile plans including the new ones at Wirefly to see the difference.
Compare T-Mobile plans including the new ones at Wirefly to see the difference.
I liberally use however much data/text/minutes I want on Ting (same networks as T-Mobile) and my bill is never more than $30.
Honestly these unlimited plans seem like massive overkill; especially for T-Mobile because they already give you the data for YouTube and several music streaming services for free. What are people doing on their phones and tablets that's using several GB per month?
Actually, given the trouble Comcast seems to cause (yes, the Blast tier is fast; but my T-Mobile seems to be more-reliable, with fewer stalls and faster downloads in general), I could see switching to T-Mobile as my primary ISP. I'm paying $80/month for Comcast, yet switching to 4GLTE on my phone causes Cyanogenmod updates and Spotify music downloads to come down 3-5 times faster than my 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac access point (an Asus RT-AC66U AT1750) supplies my OnePlus One.
$60 + $80 or just one straight $70/month bill? Even if T-Mobile charges an extra $30/month to allow tethering or whatever, it's still cheaper.
Until Comcast rolls out 2G Internet for $80/month anyway.
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It was years ago when I signed up for T-mobile. They described my plan and said it included, among other things, international calling. I told them specifically "I don't need, nor will I ever use international calling. Remove that and I will sign up for your service." They said "no problem!" and I got their phone service.
Fast forward 4 years and my phone was stolen. I was having a great time that weekend at the downtown high-rise apartment of an amazingly generous and affluent acquaintance with quite a few other friends and acquaintances. Being preoccupied I did not notice the phone was missing for 2 days. Once I returned home and realized it was well and truly gone I contacted T-mobile. The conversation went like this.
Me: "Hi my phone was stolen."
T-mobile: "I see. Looks like you ran up over $900 in calls to Guatemala and Honduras over the weekend."
Me: "How can that be? I told you when I signed up for service that I would only sign up if you disabled international calling."
T-mobile: "Hmmm. Let me check. Oh, I see it here in the notes. Let me get you with a supervisor that can help you with that."
T-mobile supervisor: "Hello, since you have been a good customer we are graciously offering to discount your international calls you made by $50 if you pay in full over the phone right now."
Me: "Your associate just confirmed that I requested international calling turned off on my phone as a condition of purchasing your service, how are there international calls made on my phone and how am I responsible for that?"
T-mobile supervisor: "Your records do not show that. I can accept your credit card."
me: "...."
On subsequent calls with them they called my wife a liar. They called me a liar. They accused me of giving the phone to someone else to use, charging that person cash, and then attempting to refute the charges. They were rude, intentionally offensive, and intentionally provocative. In retrospect, I realize they did everything they could to keep me off balance and upset.
I was young and stupid and didn't contact a lawyer, go to small claims court, etc. I just didn't pay them anything, ever and considered strongly the use of fire to extract recompense for my time and frustration. Were this to happen to me today I would have someone's ass, it would be posted on the Consumerist instantly, there would be recorded conversations of them doing this, and they would be looking at a lawsuit.
TL;DR: My recommendation, no matter what they offer you, don't ever enter into a contract with T-mobile and never use them for anything more than a place to store rancid feces.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.