t-mo is not really cheaper than AT&T unless you use very little data
$50 + $20 subsidy + taxes comes out to close to $90 AT&T price for a single line
for family plans its more expensive on t-mobile
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
T-Mobile USA to Carry iPhone Beginning April 12th, Using New 'Uncarrier' Payment Plan
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
t-mo is not really cheaper than AT&T unless you use very little data
$50 + $20 subsidy + taxes comes out to close to $90 AT&T price for a single line
for family plans its more expensive on t-mobile
For $50 you get one line with 500GB of included data. For $60 you get 2GB of high speed data. For $70, you get unlimited data but only 500MB of it can be used for hotspot/tethering. For an extra $10, you can add 2GB of data to the unlimited plan for a total of 2.5GB available for hotspot/tethering use. If you hit the hotspot limit, it cuts off completely unless you buy another 2GB.
Any word if the 4S and 4 will support AWS bands? I'm getting the 5 for sure, but I'd like to get my wife a 4 if it'll support the AWS bands. I'm not sure that their refarmed coverage is totally rolled out in my area.
They basically just have variations of one plan. One line $50, 2nd line $30, each additional line $10. This includes unlimited talk, text and 500MB of data. To each line you have the option to add 2GB of data for $10 or unlimited for $20. Tethering is included up to the data limit on anything but the unlimited plan. For the unlimited plan, you can add 2GB for tethering for $10, giving a total of 2.5GB available for tethering.
Well if you are getting good PCS coverage, I don't think it is worth going in for the new T-mobile iPhone 5. Why? Because the all of the PCS upgrade towers (1900 Mhz) are being switched on for LTE. The equipment that went in was the state of the art that has LTE capability and huge backhaul. So LTE should be coming very soon by summer to your tower. The new phone is only good for those who have very little 3G on iPhone but their other AWS phones show good 4G. Then you can get the same experience on the iphone too from 12th April on T-mobile's iPhone 5.
Bookmarking your response. We will see how things are 1-2 years from now
support is different from selling though. tmobile's network for a long time could only support 2g on the iPhone. that is a big hurdle. i'm in tmobile's lte launch area so this is a win for my whole family to switch
your example with verizon isn't a direct comparison, because att and verizon virtually charged the same amount each month, and both have great networks. tmobile actually is bringing more flexible and lower pricing for the iPhone now.
You are bookmarking my response so you can maybe come back two years from now with an "I told you so"? Ok, cool bud. Go for it...
My point with verizon is that the iPhone wasn't the be all end all of the network. They did fine for years without it and most of their iPhone customers were already on their network to begin with. In other words, the carrier mattered more to most than did the phone. That is basically a statistical fact.
As far as tmobile, I wish them nothing but success. But I don't see this putting too much of a hurt on verizon or att, UNLESS they (tmo) do a whole lot strengthening their footprint and namely reception. If they can do that and keep these prices, I think they certainly have something. Otherwise, the savings ends up being pretty minimal anyway, especially with a 3+ member family plan unless you aren't getting a new phone every two years (yes, some do that, but my guess is most do not). In all honesty I think sprint has the most to worry about. Tmo is offering exactly what sprint is all with a much cheaper monthly rate and no commitment requirement. Their coverage maps are basically the same too. On paper, tmobile just destroyed sprint.
Having 2 GB and LTE is like having somebody give you an F1 car to drive 24/7 but only a gallon of fuel. LTE without unlimited is nothing.
It's great for family plan.
here's the cost for a FAMILY PLAN with these usages
line 1: unlimited talk, unlimited text, unlimited data
line 2: unlimited talk, unlimited text, 2.5 GB of data
line 3: unlimited talk, unlimited text, 500MB of data
line 4: unlimited talk, unlimited text, 500MB of data
$80 (first 2 lines) + $10 (3rd line) + $10 (4th line) + $20 (unlimited data for line 1) + $10 (2GB extra for line 2) = $130
$130 / 4 = $32.5
==================================================
cost of a FAMILY PLAN with low data usage / use wifi instead
Line 1: unlimited talk, unlimited text and 500MB of data
Line 2: unlimited talk, unlimited text and 500MB of data.
Line 3: unlimited talk, unlimited text and 500MB of data
Line 4: unlimited talk, unlimited text and 500MB of data
$80 (line 1 and line 2) + $10 (for line 3) + $10 (for line 4)= $100
$100 / 4 = $25 per line
here's the cost for a FAMILY PLAN with these usages
line 1: unlimited talk, unlimited text, unlimited data
line 2: unlimited talk, unlimited text, 2.5 GB of data
line 3: unlimited talk, unlimited text, 500MB of data
line 4: unlimited talk, unlimited text, 500MB of data
$80 (first 2 lines) + $10 (3rd line) + $10 (4th line) + $20 (unlimited data for line 1) + $10 (2GB extra for line 2) = $130
$130 / 4 = $32.5
==================================================
cost of a FAMILY PLAN with low data usage / use wifi instead
Line 1: unlimited talk, unlimited text and 500MB of data
Line 2: unlimited talk, unlimited text and 500MB of data.
Line 3: unlimited talk, unlimited text and 500MB of data
Line 4: unlimited talk, unlimited text and 500MB of data
$80 (line 1 and line 2) + $10 (for line 3) + $10 (for line 4)= $100
$100 / 4 = $25 per line
Last edited:
I've been on T-Mobile for nearly 10 years. I only upgrade every three or four years, and it's time for me to get a new phone. I'll get an iPhone 5 and likely keep it until iPhone 7. So I'm going to save a ton of money in the long haul.
If you like to upgrade every 12 months just because you want the new iPhone and don't really need it, you're not going to save any money. Then again, if you have enough disposable income to upgrade every 12 months, what do you care? You've been blowing money for nothing anyway.
If you like to upgrade every 12 months just because you want the new iPhone and don't really need it, you're not going to save any money. Then again, if you have enough disposable income to upgrade every 12 months, what do you care? You've been blowing money for nothing anyway.
oh ok, yeah I had been looking at some of their prepaid, they got some decent pricing in all ranges now, thanks for asnwering my question btw
You have now said this twice. This is not how businesses set prices, except in monopoly or near monopoly situations.
Businesses set prices based on what the market will pay for a service or good. If they can make a profit producing that good or service at that price, the business will be successful. Setting prices based on cost plus profit is a terrible way of pricing.
It's simply a loan on the device. Just like a car loan, I don't think you can just stop paying and return the phone. There'll be penalties.
The difference is that the loan terms are plain out in the open for everyone to see. And that they don't keep charging you after 2 years.
IMO that is brilliant, and I never thought I'd see it happen in the west.
This is honesty in business, and not the sleazy **** that everyone else is pulling whereby:
- You never know what your actual loan terms are
- You never know how much of your monthly payment goes to the phone plan, and how much towards paying back the device. So it's hard to compare carriers.
- If you bring your own unlocked full price device, you're an idiot. Because you're still going to be paying back the subsidy. It's baked into the price plans.
- You can't freely use any SIM card you like because your phone is locked.
- You can't, for example, keep paying back your phone but switch to another carrier because they have cheaper data / call rates.
All in all the packaging is deeply uncompetitive. The carriers are well aware of that - and very happy with it, too.
Here in Asia everyone buys their phones at full price anyway; there are little loan shops around the corner that'll loan you money but they're separate from the phone shops.
Of course, that's not the part that's not mainstream. Many people still use dumb phones. But for the most part they get plans that are a good fit in the first place for those phones, not pay a subsidy and then sell a phone to make it back.
Nope. It's not rocket science. What I'm saying is most people who want a simple cheap phone would just get a plan where they aren't paying a subsidy in the first place instead of paying it and then jumping through hoops to get it back. If that's what happens to work out best for you, that's wonderful. I'm just saying that TM not having the same kludgy loopholes isn't a downside for the average phone user.
I don't see why any company has an obligation to leave in loopholes that let people game the system. At some point ATT will probably change their plans and policies as well - at some point the bigger carriers may only offer smartphone plans and people without will just be wasting their money.
the pay the same rate after 2 years is for simplicity in the billing system. telecom billing systems are very complex. the calling plans, taxation data, raw calling data and status of your contract are in separate databases and only brought together to create a bill.
not a big deal to "buy" a free on contract phone every 18-24 months so you don't "waste money"
You are correct in saying that price will be affected by what the market will bear. However, successful businesses set prices based on cost/expense plus profit. The margin of profit will definitely be determined by what the market will bear. That is why smart businesses research the market. If the market will not bear a price that will allow for profit then a wise business will not move forward with that product. Sure, there are some businesses that may choose to sell a specific product at a loss for a period of time due to profits being gained in other parts of the company being able to cover the loss. However, taking a loss on anything is a losing battle and should only be done for a temporary time frame or as a part of a larger strategy that does yield profitability.
Successful businesses look at profit margin from the beginning and plan pricing proactively before deciding to move forward. Consumers can be fickle and there is always risk, but any business that charges ahead with producing a product without knowing their profit margins ahead of time is being foolish. You don't invest in production with an "oh well, we'll see if the market supports this and we can make some money... Let's go ahead and make X units and we'll decide on pricing later".
$70 is close to $90? You know there are taxes (and more of them) on ATT too, right? Plus you missed that the $70 at TM gives unlimited minutes, to get that on ATT you're looking at $110 per month. Plus only 300 megs on ATT with overage charges versus 500 megs and throttling on TM. So yeah, it's cheaper and comes with more data.
The best deal seems to be the ATT mobile shared plan, for four lines it's $230 per month, unlimited call and text, and 6 gigs shared data. TM gets you that for $140, if you do the $20 monthly for four phones, that's still $220 (with more data, and no overage fees). And with the TM plan it's easy to do things like only replacing two of the phones at a time and handing the old ones down, that's a huge savings.
And pretty nice ones. The one thing they're lacking at this point is shared data, but the unlimited is cheap enough that it isn't much of an issue.
No,
Let's do the math again.
ATT 450 minutes plus rollover plus any mobile calling to any mobile carrier with unlimited texts $20 plus $30 for 3GB data plan
Vs. T-mobile's $50 plus $10 (2GB). So $60 for T-mobile Vs. $90 for ATT.
So $30 a month is a big difference until you start adding back the $450 subsidy ATT gives you for the $199 subsdized iphone.
$90 X 20 months equals $1800 over 20 months for ATT. I say 20 months since ATT lets you ugprade again at 20 months.
Tmobile is $60 X20 months equals $1200.
So T-mobile is cheaper by $600 over a $20 month period.
However, subtract the $450 subsidy ATT gives you. The savings for T-mobile comes down to $150.
That's no a huge savings. Still a savings over 20 months.
But once you start adding lines 3, 4, 5 with ATT or Verizon's subsidy model, you can see the advantage for post paid carriers swing in favor of ATT/Verizon around line 4.
----------
So I added a line for my 72 year old mother. And all she uses is a flip phone. The add a line is a "good fit" for my mother. Cause its cheap. Why shouldn't I use the subsidy every 20 months to buy whatever phone I want?
I have used all the carriers. Aerial/Voicestream/T mobile from 1997-2012.
Verizon 2011-current
ATT 2004-current
Sprint 1996-2004
yes I always carry 2 phone lines with me. So I pretty much know all the ins and outs of the big 4 carriers.
T-mobile prior policy was if you buy a subsidized smartphone, you were required to have data on it for the duration of the contract. If you buy out right, no data is needed.
ATT/Verizon/Sprint do not have that policy. They cannot have their cake and eat it too.
ATT/Verizon/Sprint still force data plans on you even if you buy it outright/craigslist/ebay/full price. They still require data after you finish the contract IF you are still using a smartphone on that line.
That's why ATT/Verizon are in a catch 22. They can't have it both ways. You cannot force data on the network if the phone is purchased outright/finished contract but also require data on a subsidized phone for 24 month.
Let's face it, data is the cash cow for carriers. They know it.
So explain to me what part of what I am doing is not right or not mainstream?
Verizon and ATT changed to the share data plans to extra more money out of you. Very little savings at all. They are trying to move flip phones out of the way cause it doesn't generate any revenue.
But at the same time they were bragging about "new lines" being added to family plans.
The big carriers are caught with their pants down.
The american public (with the exception of Canada) probably over pay for their cell phone service more than any other country.
the AT&T prices i quoted are with taxes included. T-mo is before taxes
even if T-mo is say $10 or $20 cheaper a month its not worth it for me because they have the worst phone pricing of all the carriers in the US
i know people on T-mo with no smartphones and these new plans are a good deal for them and will allow them to buy smartphones, but i doubt they will get any people to switch from AT&T or verizon
You only get it that low if you're comparing unlimited minutes to 450 minutes per month. I'm sure plenty of people are happy with that, but it doesn't change the fact when you compare apples for apples, TM is significantly cheaper. And they allow for much more flexibility in terms of buying and upgrading phones.
Not when you do the math. Even paying $20x4 lines for the installment plan on TM, it's still cheaper.
Paying a subsidy and selling a phone you never used is not "mainstream" (if you have actual reason to believe that it's widespread, let's see the evidence). I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, I'm just saying it isn't common (and if it became common, ATT would just change their policies).
ATT is $80 before taxes for 450 minutes and 300 megs data (with overages). TM is $70 before taxes for unlimited minutes, 500 megs data with throttling instead of overage charges. So yeah, you can get the prices pretty close if you pick ATT plans that don't offer as much, but that doesn't change the fact that TM is cheaper, and more so when you actually compare similar plans.