T-Mobile is the country’s fourth largest cellphone company. Until this month they have not had an Apple iPhone available. That is all about to change.
Last week T-Mobile made its first dramatic move. Two weekends ago it let its new “UnCarrier” plan make its way through the Internet. When they finally made the announcement during the week, they dubbed it “Simple Choice.” T-Mobile has basically done away with the standard two year contract and they offer unlimited talk and text for a basic plan of $50 per month.
Until now, T-Mobile was offering similar service plans as AT&T and Verizon. The basic two year contract that locks you into that provider’s services allowing you to get discounted prices on their mobile devices.
The second dramatic move is that T-Mobile will begin offering the iPhone 5. You will still have to wait almost two weeks as this new offering will happen on April 12, 2013. In addition to the iPhone 5, both the iPhone 4 and 4S will also be available. This makes T-Mobile the first major U.S. carrier to offer the iPhone 5 without a contract.
On March 26, 2013, John Legere, CEO at T-Mobile said, “If you come to T-Mobile you have singed your last contract. They are dead. Gone. No More.” The new plan will also allow you to upgrade your phone whenever you want. Because there is no contract, you don’t have to wait a couple of years to get a discounted price.
The Monday, March 25th, T-Mobile announced that the data plans would start with unlimited talk and text. That plus 500 MB of data downloads would cost you $50 per month for the first line. You have two other options, for $60 per month you get two gigabytes of data and $70 will get you unlimited data usage.
T-Mobile is also making it easier to afford the iPhone 5. While Verizon is selling the 16 GB version of the iPhone 5 for $199 on the contract, T-Mobile is offering it on their 4G LTE network for a down payment of $99. This is followed by paying off the rest in $20 per month increments for two years. Strange that it is still a two year period. If you do the math that means that the iPhone 5 will cost you a little over $300.
Legere says that the newest Android phones are also coming to T-Mobile. The BlackBerry Z10 is already available for $99 and the Samsung Galaxy S4 should be available on May 1. As you may have already guessed, it will cost you $99. There are also plans to have the HTC One available sometime soon.
He also said that you could see saving of more than $1,000 by going the no contract T-Mobile root. However, if you do the math, while you will be saving money, $1,000 may be a very optimistic figure keep in mind that you will be making $20 per month payments for your phone for two years. This is a separate bill from the month charges of $50, $60, or $70 per month.
The difference is that when you want to stop the service, you no longer pay the data plan fee only the phone fee. You can either continue to make the monthly $20 payments or trade in the phone for what they will consider a “fair market value credit.”
T-Mobile is making a push to move back up to the top three. They are now offering Apple iPhones, they have plans to acquire Metro PCS and they are launching their LTE network all in the hopes of gaining ground. The first phase of the 4G LTE network was launched in Baltimore, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Jose and Washington, D.C.
Edited by
Ashley Caputo 
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