T-Mobile Responds To Verizon By Improving Its Own Unlimited Data Plan (theverge.com) 48
It didn't take long for T-Mobile to respond to Verizon's recently announced unlimited data plans. T-Mobile's CEO John Legere announced two improvements to the carrier's T-Mobile One unlimited plan that both take effect this Friday, reports The Verge. "Beginning February 17th, the plan will include HD video, an upgrade to the 480p/DVD-quality 'optimizations' that are currently in place." From the report: The other change Legere announced is related to the hotspot feature of T-Mobile One, which lets you share your smartphone's data connection with other devices. As of Friday, the plan will let customers use up to 10GB of high-speed data each month for tethering. That matches Verizon's plan, which also allows for 10GB of LTE tethering. But again, prior to today, T-Mobile One only allowed 3G hotspot speeds unless you paid extra for the T-Mobile One Plus plan. Lastly, Legere announced a promotion that will offer two lines of T-Mobile One for $100. A two-line family plan usually costs $120 per month. Unlike other carriers, T-Mobile includes taxes and fees in its advertised price -- so that should be all you pay month to month. Verizon charges $140 (plus taxes and fees) for a two-line unlimited plan. Assuming there's no sneaky fine print or trickery here, T-Mobile has at least for now regained its feature-for-feature price advantage compared against Verizon Unlimited. The company also has a higher threshold (28GB versus Verizon's 22GB) before its users might experience reduced speeds when the network is congested. In a long series of tweets, John Legere announced the new improvements/promo and took several jabs at Big Red. In one tweet, Legere wrote: "... And we all know no one was falling for [Verizon's] 'you don't need unlimited' bullshit. Hey @verizon - your ads are still up..."
Competition (Score:5, Insightful)
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Don't worry (Score:1, Insightful)
Until the inevitable when they realize that working together is more profitable for all concerned things will go right back to normal yet again. Nothing to see here folks... it's all the same dog and pony show...
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Yep. 2G WAP to LTE (Score:2)
Yep, this is good to see.
I've been on Boost for a many years, so I haven't dealt with the high prices, poor customer service, and questionable billing practices that people complain about with the major carriers. I do remember, though, that when I left Sprint, it was because there prices were too high for the four MEGABYTES I went over. 28 GIGABYTES is more than a thousand times as much data as they offered when I last used a major carrier. The speed is 100X times faster than it was a few years ago.
The com
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I've been on Boost for a many years, so I haven't dealt with the high prices, poor customer service,
Boost Mobile has the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Not even close to T-Mobile when it is bad, or even Comcast. I could never get through on their customer support number, and this was a well-known enough problem that people were posting the secret codes so customers could get through as if they were sales reps. That's the only way to talk to them.
interesting. I've only needed to talk to them once (Score:2)
That's interesting. Thinking about it now, I've only needed to call customer service once, and that was probably before Sprint bought them.
Re:Customer Service (Score:1)
Re:Competition (Score:5, Interesting)
It does, but it seems annoying that all the BS about network reliability and fairness being behind cellular caps and throttling is so obviously dishonest when they expand their plan so quickly just to match a marketing trend.
If they had that much spare capacity to handle HD video and more data before, why did they wait to for Verizon before announcing it?
It's hard not to think they're all completely dishonest, the entire network except for a couple dozen towers is running at 20% utilization and they could jack caps to hundreds of gigs a month with no ill effects.
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AFAIK bingeon is still available.
Re:Hotspot Plans (Score:5, Informative)
I only bumped my head on the 5GB limit once - root the phone, edit one text file and *poof* - no more hotspot cap (not perfect, as they were able to detect and block traffic from my desktop web browser, but the useragent plugin for Chrome fixed that). Rooting my phone broke Google Pay, but that's turned out to be a pretty sterile tool anyhow. I haven't rooted my phone since I bought a Nexus 5, and won't unless I bump my head on the new cap some day.
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Didn't canada close their borders to the US after 9/11?
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Of course, you won't hear about Michael Flynn resigning until the Trump White House figures out how to spin this to look like anything other than a massive "oops!" moment.
Can I get some of whatever you're smoking? (Score:3)
I could come up with more, but really - online, I can't watch your head asplode.
Re: Good Trump!! (Score:2)
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If CEOs and companies make public announcements on Twitter, then the answer is obviously yes.
ATT Loses BIG TIME! (Score:3, Interesting)
I went over my ATT data limit & they throttled my data. So I visited their store last week and then upped my data allowed.
But I am still throttled most of the time on both cellphone and hotspot. Takes a long time to get a connection. Sometimes takes a minute to get something starting to load (looking at Mac's Activity Monitor.) Very often I'm limited to 20-40 KB/sec. ATT guys don't have an answer. Time to move to TMobile.
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You could always get directv and then get unlimited data.
Or go with t-mobile, verizon or sprint without having to have an extra service.
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Got unlimited now and it is an unlimited "hold" on when I ever get above 40 KB/sec.
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T-Mobile is much better now. With their new spectrum, they have excellent LTE coverage.
Just make sure that your phone supports LTE band 12, as that is their primary 4G spectrum. Newer phones should be fine, but the cutoff is around 2013/2014 for widespread support. E.g., the iPhone 5C doesn't have it.
Re: where's the 'feature' and "wifi only" data pla (Score:2)
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You'll be looking at MVNOs rather than major carriers. These companies resell access that they acquired at wholesale rates. In the US wireless market, the budget options are entirely via MVNOs rather than the major carriers.
MetroPCS is $30 (includes all fees) for unlimited voice/text and a small amount of data.
I believe only Total Wireless has a $25 talk/text offering, and they are a TracFone/Walmart joint venture---a very budget-focused endeavor. They have not been around long enough to have a meaningful t
why (Score:1)
A gamble worth taking? (Score:1)
Right now we have 2 lines on t-mobile under the old plan ($80 for 2 lines, 2 gig data each). including tax that's $89.
If we switch to the new plan, it's on sale for $100, including fees. AND t-mobile does a buy-back of $10 if you stay under 2 gig. We rarely go over 2 gig/line.
So at worst, it's $10 more/month. At best, it's $80, including fees. Which saves us $10.
(of course, under the old plan, most of the music streaming apps didn't count towards the data)
Worth switching?
Fine Print (Score:1)