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Carrier T-Mobile to start paying AT&T, Verizon & Sprint early termination fee on Jan 15 2014
- Thread starter EbookReader
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I wonder how they'll be able to keep customers from abusing this system.
Since there is no contract, one could basically port out to TMobile, get their ETF paid, keep the crappy service for a month, and then port right back to AT&T/VZW using the same phone and not have a contract.
This sounds like a sure fire way to loose a lot of money FAST. I guess they're setting themselves up for a Softbank takeover?
Since there is no contract, one could basically port out to TMobile, get their ETF paid, keep the crappy service for a month, and then port right back to AT&T/VZW using the same phone and not have a contract.
This sounds like a sure fire way to loose a lot of money FAST. I guess they're setting themselves up for a Softbank takeover?
I thought some of the restrictions were that was only for family accounts for four lines or more. This would prevent just the single-user single account from abusing the system. This makes me want to switch to T-Mobile as in my area they have faster service than AT&T. I have four lines and I'm mobile share plan that I would switchover in a heartbeat if they pay my ETF
Fees.
Fees.
Looks like they make you trade-in your device and buy another one thru TMo using EIP, which makes this plan a waste of money. If I'm on VZW or AT&T and have 4 lines all with iPhone 5Ss, why do I have to buy all new iPhones?
Using 5S as an example for 4 lines, that would be $0 down, plus $27 x 4 iPhones for 24 months. That's an extra $104/month I'd have to pay on top of the TMobile family plan for 2 years.
Once again, Tmobile is the king of gimmicks. Once you really start adding everything up, it's cheaper to stay put. They cover your ETF, but force you to give up a perfectly working device, so you pay for theirs.
Rough calculations:
TMobile: 4 lines, 500 mb 4G on each. $100
4 iPhone 5Cs: $0 down $22.91/month x 24 months (each)
total (per month): $191.64 + taxes/fees, etc
AT&T: 4 lines, 2gb shared data $215
4 iPhone 5Cs: FREE at Best Buy for new contracts, now.
total (per month): $215 + tax
discounts: ~17% FAN discount (avg given out for most companies, etc)
= ~$178 + tax/fees, etc
over two years (before taxes)
TMobile: ~$4,600
AT&T: ~$4,450
TMobile starts to only make sense if you are done paying off the phones, then it's only $100 + tax.
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I was thinking the same thing. Switching my wife's line over would be cool cuz she still has a 4s. My line would be tougher cuz I just bought the 5s, but I have an old 4s sitting in my drawer. I would love to get away from at&t just to prove a point. Their plans suck.
If the rumor is true, there will have to be plenty of restrictions to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
No, because you have to trade in your old device and buy a new one from t mobile. So yes it would bite t mobile if you did that, but it wouldn't really help the customer. You'd end up with no contract but out a lot on the new phone, and you'd recoup nothing from your old one except getting the eft covered.
AT&T Fan discount doesn't apply to device access fee. In this case, it should be $55-(17% discount)+$40x4lines=$205.65 per month+tax/fees
For T-Mobile, you can get 10%-15% discount from most companies also. $100-(10% discount)=$90 (T-Mobile discount applies to "add a line" fee)
so the total for T-Mobile over 2 years should be $4359.36
Total for AT&T over 2 years should be $4935.6
Same here. I have my 5S. I'd rather trade my old phone in than my new one. Then sell my current to put towards my next. Pricing for me will be similar if I'm getting new phones but difference is unlimited data for all whether it be all high speed or just data but tethering will be nice too
T-Mobile to start paying AT&T, Verizon & Sprint early termination fee on Jan ...
Uh... I've been thinking about moving to T-Mobile for a while now, but I don't know. The whole eft thing with Verizon was killing me and I also lost my unlimited data...BUT then again Verizon has been very generous to me over the years... And for the most part they DO have pretty good service where I live and everywhere I go... Except certain spots on campus.
I had T-Mobile in 2010 for like a month or two and the service was HORRIBLE. Two of my roommates have T-Mobile and they love it. They get unlimited data and everything but I do notice that one of my roommates always loses her 4G/LTE speeds a lot. Like if she goes over 2.5 GB or something. I don't know how that's gonna fly with me. If I want unlimited data I want to use it ALL with LTE and not that crappy EDGE.
Uh... I've been thinking about moving to T-Mobile for a while now, but I don't know. The whole eft thing with Verizon was killing me and I also lost my unlimited data...BUT then again Verizon has been very generous to me over the years... And for the most part they DO have pretty good service where I live and everywhere I go... Except certain spots on campus.
I had T-Mobile in 2010 for like a month or two and the service was HORRIBLE. Two of my roommates have T-Mobile and they love it. They get unlimited data and everything but I do notice that one of my roommates always loses her 4G/LTE speeds a lot. Like if she goes over 2.5 GB or something. I don't know how that's gonna fly with me. If I want unlimited data I want to use it ALL with LTE and not that crappy EDGE.
You pay more for more high speed data. There's 500mb, 2.5gb and unlimited high speed plans.
TMO is not to the level of coverage of AT&T and Verizon, but if you spend most of your time within a large metro area where they have HSPA/LTE, then you should be fine.
She's always telling us how her data is so slow because she's used it up. My other roommate never has that problem and she has T-Mobile too. I guess I'll ask them both how much data they have on their plans to figure this out...
I have T-Mo. Every data plan is "unlimited" but has different points at where they throttle you down. So one point is 500 MB, another is 2.5 gb, and the next one above that is truly unlimited (no throttling of LTE). At your friends 2.5 gb plan, she can use 2.5gb of data before they throttle her down and that includes using that data for tethering, they don't charge you extra to tether but of course you only get 2.5 gb of LTE whether you use it on your phone or through tethering. If she paid $10 more per month, she would have unlimited LTE for data usage on her phone (not unlimited tethering), and have 2.5 gb of data a month just for tethering. This is the plan I have, I've used 30 gbs of data before in one month on my phone alone - never had a problem with T-Mo throttling me down. I get great service, solid LTE connections at both home and school which is 1.5 hours away. At 3+ bars of LTE, my data ranges between 30-40 mbps. If I don't get LTE, it falls back to 4G (HSDPA+) and I get between 10-20 mbps.
In regards to the OP, I think that T-Mobile will in fact start paying early termination fees. I say this because I switched my family over to T-Mo (4 lines) 2 months ago and they paid for my early termination fee from Sprint. Though however, it was my friend who is a rep there that sold me the phones and "hooked me up" with that deal. But he didn't do anything shady at all, it went through his manager and I guess it was something they do that isn't advertised. And to the guy in the thread saying T-Mo isn't cheaper than AT&T, it was significantly when I was switching! I've looked into it, and I have a 15% "fan code" through T-Mo too, AT&T isn't the only company that does that.
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- You do realize that T-Mobile also offers up to 15% discounts as well? So for the purpose of comparing the numbers it's best to leave discounts off of both because not everyone qualifies for one. Plus the discounts don't apply to the device access fee.
- Also the $0 is a temporary sale on those phones. For comparison purposes it's best to use the normal $99 retail price that most people will pay.
- Then the last thing. If 4 people are using iPhones on AT&T, do you really think they will be able to stay on a combined data usage of less than 2GB per month? Maybe if it's a family of people who barely use their phones for anything besides talking and texting. There is bound to be some overages there for several months over the course of 2 years. TMO 500MB is pretty meager too for an iPhone, but users would get throttled for going over rather than charged an extra $15/GB.
So T-Mobile still comes out quite a bit cheaper even before you're done paying off the phones. AT&T does have better overall coverage, but if you're in an area with good TMO coverage, there is no reason to choose AT&T.
So it would be more like:
T-Mobile $4600 ($191 per month)
AT&T $5160 ($215 per month)
That's almost the price of another full priced iPhone 5C. Then of course for those many users who decide not to upgrade as soon as their new one is available (waiting for the next iPhone, or content with their current one), the price difference only increases after each passing month.
AT&T/VZW share plans are only competitive with T-Mobile if you have a family that barely uses data. 2GB is pathetic for a 4 people using iPhones to share. So it's an extreme and unrealistic example in my opinion. But with increased data usage, the price advantage of T-Mobile only becomes greater (compare 2.5GB per line with a 10GB share plan).
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If this rumor is true, you will trade in your old phone for credit towards a new one on T-Mobile and if you want to leave, just pay T-Mobile the balance remaining on the new device. T-Mobile will pay off your ETF from your previous carrier.
And since T-Mobile is adding customers, their net gain and net loss will balance out, but a little bit more profit.
You end up spending much more on the new devices versus the ETF to leave VZW/AT&T.
Well done TMobile. You've become the king of coming up with gimmicks that people will fall for.
You end up spending much more on the new devices versus the ETF to leave VZW/AT&T.
Well done TMobile. You've become the king of coming up with gimmicks that people will fall for.
This is still a rumor, and T-Mobile doesn't make gimmicks, they make useful strategies to get them out of the corruption from the failed AT&T merger and to put innovation into the wireless industry.
Yup. Being the last carrier to deploy both 3G (still not completed) and LTE is considered "innovation" now for the T-Mobile fans.
Gotcha.
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