T-Mobile Ending All Overage Charges, Challenging Rivals to Follow

[MacRumors]

T-Mobile is kicking off a new campaign targeting overage fees as part of its ongoing Uncarrier initiative that aims to disrupt the wireless industry in the U.S. Starting in May, the U.S. carrier is eliminating overage charges for all its customers regardless of their cellular plan. The wireless carrier also challenges its competitors to do the same.

With this move, T-Mobile is abolishing those additional charges that are levied when a customer exceeds their available minutes or allotted data for their cellular plan. These extra calling minutes or gigabytes of data are charged at a much higher rate and can easily add hundreds of dollars on to a customer's base monthly bill. Estimates cited by T-Mobile suggest consumers paid up to $1 billion in penalties last year for these punitive charges.

"Charging overage fees is a greedy, predatory practice that needs to go," continued T-Mobile CEO John Legere. "Starting in May for bills arriving in June - regardless of whether you're on Simple Choice, Simple Starter or an older plan, we're abolishing overages for good. Period."

Besides removing overage fees, T-Mobile's Legere also started an online petition that asks AT&T, Verizon and Sprint to end overage fees, saying they are "no longer welcomed in this industry."

This petition is part of a larger initiative by T-Mobile to shake up the cellular industry in the United States with a series of promotions and policy changes, including ETF buyouts for customers who switch from a rival carrier, early upgrades and no-contract cellular plans.

Article Link: T-Mobile Ending All Overage Charges, Challenging Rivals to Follow

 

[iAppl3Fan]

Go T-Mobile! You guys are shaking it up. Other carriers should be worried.

 

[S.B.G]

I'm liking these new business initiatives by T-Mobile. I just wish they had better coverage in my area.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

The cable industry needs a T-Mobile.

 

[cmwade77]

The link to the press release about this isn't working......I would love to confirm this on T-Mobile's site directly.

 

[bushido]

over here they throttle you to 64kbs after u reached your data limit instead of charging you redic amounts for an 1mb

 

[Makosuke]

You really gotta like T-Mobile. They're running a carrier the way carriers should have been run from the start, if the industry hadn't been mired in a consumer-hostile mess enabled by rampant collusion for so long.

Their coverage isn't very good, but it's good enough where I live to make me glad I'm a customer, and their international roaming is so far beyond what anyone else offers that there isn't even any competition for those of us who travel.

 

[ghostface147]

Just expand your network and make it stronger....

 

[edk99]

All I see is this is going to push low priced plans up. So t-mobiles $40 simple start plan will soon be $65+? Stoping overage charges wouldn't everyone flock to the cheapest plan? I can't see ATT and Verizon doing something like this.

 

[alent1234]

with this new plan isn't t-mo simply cutting off your data and letting you buy some more instead of throttling you or charging you an overage fee?

 

[jclardy]

So how does this work then? I assume you are still going to pay for the extra data when you go over...but is it just at the same rate as your initial package?

 

[Plutonius]

I'm confused. Without overage charges, what's to prevent me from getting the cheapest data plan and using all the data I want ?

 

[OriginalMacRat]

The cable industry needs a T-Mobile.

The cable industry has deals with cities to prevent competition.

 

[extrachrispy]

with this new plan isn't t-mo simply cutting off your data and letting you buy some more instead of throttling you or charging you an overage fee?

So how does this work then? I assume you are still going to pay for the extra data when you go over...but is it just at the same rate as your initial package?

I'm confused. Without overage charges, what's to prevent me from getting the cheapest data plan and using all the data I want ?

The deal is that they throttle you to EDGE speeds when you reach your allocation, and then they call their plans "unlimited data."

 

[OC40]

So how does this work then? I assume you are still going to pay for the extra data when you go over...but is it just at the same rate as your initial package?

I thought the same thing. It doesn't make sense otherwise.

 

[31 Flavas]

I'm confused. Without overage charges, what's to prevent me from getting the cheapest data plan and using all the data I want ?

2G speed or data cut offs? The $40 Simple Starter w/ 500 meg probably just caps out and cuts off data at 500 meg. If not, then you're throttled to 2G speed (64-128kb/s).

The rest of the post-paid contracts it's already known, they throttle you. My iPad which is only on the $0/mo free 200 meg pre-paid plan, the data is just straight out cut off.

 

[itguy06]

I'm confused. Without overage charges, what's to prevent me from getting the cheapest data plan and using all the data I want ?

They may stop you and make you pay for more data. That would end overages and give you control of your bill. There would be no more $200 surprises because you streamed a movie. You could get a smaller plan that covers most of your usage and for that month you ned more just buy more. Or if you ran out of your data a couple days before your bill cycle, instead of paying ridiculous overages just wait it out.

It's a good idea. Hardly revolutionary but a good idea.

Now they just need to keep plugging away on coverage!

 

[Frizers]

Charging overage fees is a greedy, predatory practice that needs to go," continued T-Mobile CEO John Legere.

So tmobile were greedy and predatory until they just changed this?

 

[itguy06]

The deal is that they throttle you to EDGE speeds when you reach your allocation, and then they call their plans "unlimited data."

You can get truly unlimited with no throttling.

And I'm on prepaid and was throttled for 1 day. It was not that bad. You wouldn't be streaming anything but for basic app usage, navigation, and limited web searching/browsing it was fine. 128k is not speedy but usable. Better than racking up hundreds with, say Verizon.

 

[ghostface147]

I'm confused. Without overage charges, what's to prevent me from getting the cheapest data plan and using all the data I want ?

Always being throttles to nearly unusable speeds...

 

[pramirez95]

I want to marry T-Mobile.

 

[Elbon]

They may stop you and make you pay for more data.

No, they just throttle your connection. Not sure how it would work with voice or text overages, though.

 

[yg17]

The deal is that they throttle you to EDGE speeds when you reach your allocation, and then they call their plans "unlimited data."

It's funny, when AT&T does it with their grandfathered unlimited data plan, it's false advertising and misleading. When T-Mobile does it, it's revolutionary and shaking up the wireless industry.

 

[Luscious]

So how does this work? Do they cut off your data when you hit the limit, throttle you when you hit the limit or throttle you for a bit after you hit the limit then cut you off? I'd be all for it as long as I had the option to buy additional data if I wanted it.

You've got to applaud T-Mobile for shaking things up. Everybody benefits because the other companies are going to have to respond in some way. I've already seen my AT&T bill drop from by nearly $40 bucks in the last several months due to their new mobile share value plans. It's getting closer and closer to a level I think is acceptable.

I'm in an area where 2G is the best T-Mobile has but I'm located right between two metropolitan areas that both have LTE coverage. If you drive a few miles north or south T-Mobile has LTE coverage so it's only a matter of time before they provide it where I live. First Verizon then AT&T rolled theirs out the same way.

When that happens I'll have to give T-Mobile a good long look. The only downside would be traveling. It's so nice to have AT&T's slower 4G coverage to fall back on when LTE isn't available in an area. Having to go back to 2G in those instances won't be fun.

 

[2457282]

I bought my 5s on a AT&T 2-year contract. Depending on what Apple does, I may bail when the 6 comes out. It will be interesting to see what each of the carriers offer in October. Right now I see me either jumpin to Tmob or staying with AT&T. Sprint and Verizon still do not allow surfing and talking at the same time (they really need to get off of CDMA and fix this).