Slashdot Mirror
Battle of the Carriers: T-Mobile's New Promotion Offers Three Unlimited Data Lines For $100 (theverge.com)
A battle is raging between telecommunications giants and the public is benefiting from it. In response to T-Mobile's "One" unlimited data plan announced in August, Verizon introduced unlimited data plans of their own a couple of weeks ago. This caused a ripple effect as Sprint and AT&T unveiled new unlimited data plans that same week, both of which have their own restrictions and pricing. The battle appears to show no signs of slowing as the carriers are continuing their efforts to win consumers over. Today, AT&T undercut Verizon and T-Mobile with newer unlimited data plans. The "Unlimited Choice" plan is the cheaper of the two new plans, featuring unlimited data at a maximum speed of 3 megabits per second, standard definition, and no mobile hotspot for $60 per month. While it's lower than T-Mobile's $70 plan and Verizon's $80 option, it may not be as generous as T-Mobile's latest promotion. The company just announced a new promotion after AT&T's announcement that offers three unlimited data lines for $100. The Verge reports: In its continuing efforts to attract more sign-ups, T-Mobile's latest promotion offers an additional line for free for accounts with two or more lines. The offer works whether you want to add an extra phone line or a line for wearables or tablets. The deal is available for current and new customers -- the amount of data available to the free line will match up with whatever your current plan is for the other lines. If your plan does not have the same amount of data between devices, the free line will get whatever's the lowest of the bunch. Just two weeks ago, the company updated its T-Mobile One plan to include unlimited data for $100 a month between two lines. CEO John Legere said the free line promotion also applies this new plan. If you are confused about the four carriers' recent announcements, you are not alone. We have included related links below to help you make sense of each carrier's plans.
I don't want plans or contracts... but that seems to be what the war is over.
ATT is not cheaper than T-Mobile. Taxes are about 28% of bill
"If you are confused about the four carriers' recent announcements, you are not alone. We have included related links below "
Now we're even more confused, since those included "links below" are non-existent.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I stood outside of Starbucks with a friend the other day with my iPhone on ATT and his on TMobile.
He ran the "Speed Test" on his and I on mine. I am not kidding that TMobile had 10 times the speed.
Why? I am not sure. What I can tell you is that I went over my data plan last month and ever since, my data speed is throttled. ATT offers no clue.
I'm moving to TMobile!
Isn't it wonderful when there are multiple choices and competition? Would be nice if the plans were for all qty, not just 3, though.
This is only happening because the DOJ blocked ATT's purchase of T-mobile. If they'd been allowed to purchase T-Mobile then ATT wouldn't have had to compete against an upstart network that's gaining subscribers by stealing them from ATT. This is why regulation is so important because without it ATT would have used their deep pockets to finance purchasing a competitor to eliminate competition and increase prices in coordination with Verizon. Under the Trump administration that purchase would have likely been approved to the detriment of every consumer.
I want multiple cable options.
We only JUST got cable competition (FIOS vs Comcast) and it immediately resulted in price reductions and internet speed increases by Comcast. We should try this with other monopolies.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
...am I the only one who will never, ever, give another cent to AT&T? Nevermind their willingness to be the government's bitch, their customer support and billing practices are a joke.
After all the headaches they've caused me and my employer over the years, I took great joy in canceling every line we had with them a couple years back and vowed never to make that mistake again.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
When politicians talk about private sector as the epitome of American perfection, remember private sector without competition and as a state sanctioned monopoly will function exactly like the cable companies.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I pay for the data, voice and text I use. All three lines are calculated together, the more I use the less I pay per megabyte/minute/message. I am usually around $50/mo for all three lines give or take a few bucks. Ting is only a re-seller of other carriers (Sprint and optionally T-Mobile), but there are other re-sellers that are similarly priced. I used to spend about the same on Virgin Mobile USA (Sprint). I'm sure if you could find MVNO's for the AT&T and Verizon that have a decent pay-as-you-go plan for multiple devices.
Amusingly the carriers often own these MVNOs. Sprint owns Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA. MetroPCS is owned by T-Mobile. And AT&T owns Cricket Wireless.
Verizon just announced something like this where it was an introductory rate and they jack it up to $170 or so in year 2. I'm wondering if this is the same. If not I'm paying about $135 for 3 lines (technically 4 but the 4th line is unused) and 3gb/mo so I'd be game.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
While not exactly the same, you do have _some_ competition.. cable & satellite services & U-Verse & for some, streaming systems or even 'just' OTA.
(Personally, while sure, I would always want it cheaper, cable is the one thing that everyone _else_ complains about the price of, that I think I get more entertainment than I can watch for a decent price.. of course, I tivo everything and skip the ads.)
Why do I need three phone lines? I can only talk on one phone at a time.
The real question here, which shouldn't even need to be asked but does...
Which of these plans is the least-limited version of "unlimited"? I've already discovered that Verizon won't offer their plan for 4G access points (even though I can buy a five year old sacrificial phone and tether to it 24/7). AT&T apparently doesn't allow tethering at all (which I thought the FCC had previously spanked them for, but, no surprise they went for a "Hail Mary" pass after this past January).
So, which of these plans really will let you use it as close to unlimited as possible? I have no delusion any of them will actually give me the upper possible limit of a solid 42.8Mbps for 13TB/month, but will any even realistically let me use 3-5Mbps sustained for a few hours a day, with 50+GB/month total?
From the release:
Free Line: Qual’g credit req’d. Customers cancelling a line after 1/1/17 not eligible. May take up to 2 bill cycles. 1/acct; must keep existing lines. Taxes/fees may be applied to pre- bill credit price on some legacy plans.
1. Qual'g credit req'd. Nice way to hide that one T-Mobile. So qualifying credit required - so is someone with less-than-stellar credit not able to get a free line?
2. Customers cancelling a line after 1/1/17 not eligible. In other words, if you already have all the lines you need, don't think you can just cancel one and then get it back for free. And if you cancel any line, you are no longer eligible to get a free line and will lose any "free" line you currently have.
3. May take up to 2 bill cycles. Why? Do humans have to process the bill credit? (yeah, right)
4. 1/acct;... So whether you currently have 2 lines or 8 lines, you can still only get 1 for free. Whoopie! (not)
5. ...must keep existing lines. There it is. Refer to #2.
6. Taxes/fees may be applied to pre- bill credit price on some legacy plans. Ah, so you'll still pay taxes on that line unless, presumably, you're on an "All-In" plan.
So basically, nobody currently on T-Mobile benefits from this except for those who may already be looking at adding a line to their account. And for those that do take advantage of this, you are then stuck with every line you have if you want to keep getting that credit.
They are if it's way cheaper, and fits the specific user's needs. Some people don't need blazing fast speed.
Just a reminder that if there are isn't a speed cap on them, these plans typically start throttling you after you use 20 something gigabytes of high speed data in a billing period. Therefore, these so-called "unlimited" plans are actually "20 something gigabytes of high speed data per month" plans.
I thought you were only deprioritized if you go over your limit and it is a time of congestion. To give other customers a fair chance at access.
From their site
https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-...
Fine print
"Qual’g plan req’d. On all T-Mobile plans, if congested, top 3% of data users (>28GB/mo.) may notice reduced speeds due to prioritization. Sales tax & regulatory fees included in mo. service price"
I don't get why the hell they had to abbreviate qualifying. They had PLENTY of room for the whole actual word. Yet they chose to go to some effort to reduce it down to Qual'g which is not actually a version I'd ever seen before and had to stop for a second and think about what the hell they were trying to say. Qualcomm? Qualifying? Oh.
But they had all that room left! WHY T-Mobile!? WHY!
Guess I will stick with my Simply Prepaid service. Never had to qualify for it and it costs less per month anyway.
Sig for hire.
Joke away, they brought us the overhead camera...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
My options are up to 3mbps DSL, Cable, and Cellular.
January 1st my cable (internet only) went from $55->$87, I was going to cancel but they knocked me down to $60 (25mbps FYI).
Cellular was the better option over DSL (for someone living alone). for an extra $25 I can get unlimited tethering, throttled after 25 or so GB on Tmobile. I could probably make do only streaming SD and doing serious work from the office (my only use of internet at home is video and reading).
I think over the next 5 - 10 years wireless will be real competition, considering it already is for people living alone (not as good, but hits the value point really well, starting to look good enough). Either that, or someone will come up with a need for a lot more bandwidth, 25mbps pretty much covers the typical home today (a couple of 1080p streams and some spare for other stuff). Sure, I wouldn't mind 1gbps, but it's not really worth much extra to me, my cellular currently gets me 25-50 mbps, faster than Comcast until the throttling, I'd gladly pay a $60 addon to my bill for a device that was throttle free, had an Ethernet port, and and worked on the cellular network. My latency isn't great on cellular though (40-60 ms).
Even so, I think cellular is going to be what starts a real broadband price war, it has low capital outlay (as it's mostly there already for making the phones work), it's improving rapidly as the needs are not (4k only tripling them or so).
Comcast either needs a game changer in need or to not be customer hostile, otherwise tmobile, Verizon Wireless, and AT&T are going to destroy them. They need to start now too, as people will spite switch if they don't do something.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg