While it is clearly marketed and geared towards families, the press release makes it clear it applies to all new lines, including individuals switching to T-Mobile.
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T-Mobile's 'Un-Carrier 4.0' Initiative Offers Up to $350 Per Line to Switch Carriers
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While it is clearly marketed and geared towards families, the press release makes it clear it applies to all new lines, including individuals switching to T-Mobile.
I suppose that's a remote possibility but from what I got from my visit to the local T-Mobile store is what ever phone you have on contract is on the paperwork being transferred from AT&T to T-Mobile. So if you have a 5S now, you must trade it into T-Mobile and use the credit for what ever phone you buy off of them, say a 5S on their network.
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Thanks but I did correct myself in post #146.
No - only a portion of that is applied as a bill credit. The ETF is awarded as a prepaid Mastercard.
No. I mean the $782 I would get the from the phone trade-ins. Those are issued as a credit only to be used toward an EIP phone.
The ETF credit, itself, you are correct. It comes as a Mastercard.
Did the math and AT&T is cheaper for me
Was really surprised.
I have two lines with AT&T on 550 min plan, unlimited text, one 2GB and the other 3GB. Both are iPhone 5. I do get a 20% discount through work with AT&T. No discount with T-Mobile... but even if you add in a 10 or even 20% discount the deal just isn't there. The kicker IMO is that AT&T/Apple (and I think Verizon) make is so easy and seamless to upgrade every two years. You walk in and walk out. No out of pocket expense. You lose that with T-Mobile it seems. What a shame. I kinda liked their smack talk attitude at CES.
Was really surprised.
I have two lines with AT&T on 550 min plan, unlimited text, one 2GB and the other 3GB. Both are iPhone 5. I do get a 20% discount through work with AT&T. No discount with T-Mobile... but even if you add in a 10 or even 20% discount the deal just isn't there. The kicker IMO is that AT&T/Apple (and I think Verizon) make is so easy and seamless to upgrade every two years. You walk in and walk out. No out of pocket expense. You lose that with T-Mobile it seems. What a shame. I kinda liked their smack talk attitude at CES.
Except when you factor in the subsidies we have for each line....
Take the iPhone, subsidized savings of $450 x 7 lines = $3,150. Split that over the two year contract period and you come to $131.25 per month.
So for me, AT&T still wins out.
Ok, so that only applies to you. Assuming some one is getting a new plan, they constantly lose with AT&T. Only thing that keeps me there is corporate discount and stipend for my data. Have yet to talk to my supervisor about data stipend if I was to switch to TMo
How is this a Macrumor?
iPhones and their carriers. It wouldn't be here if T-Mobile didn't have the iPhone.
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Everyone loses with AT&T? I kinda doubt it for a lot of the people I know. And that's ignoring the superior AT&T service in Los Angeles. AT&T (maybe Sprint too?) is the only thing that works in some parts of Sherman Oaks.
The deal isn't that great when you consider you have to buy a phone. Based on the monthly payment, monthly service cost, it's not cheaper than AT&T for me.
Now if I can trade in a cheap old smartphone (don't care about what I get for it) have them pay my etf, sell the device I have to finance with them and hopefully make a good amount to not lose much for repayment of the device in full. Then I can see it working. My current phone is the 5s so I don't need anything else.
Now if I can trade in a cheap old smartphone (don't care about what I get for it) have them pay my etf, sell the device I have to finance with them and hopefully make a good amount to not lose much for repayment of the device in full. Then I can see it working. My current phone is the 5s so I don't need anything else.
You don't even need to switch carriers to benefit from this. Once T-Mobile fires, AT&T and Verizon and Sprint answer. One more competitor means cheaper prices for everyone. It's only bad for those owning stock in these companies.
You do not have to buy new phones from T-Mo if you switch from AT&T. I switched in Nov and I brought over 4 iPhones from AT&T. 3 were out of contract and 1 I paid $200 to break. After 3 months, my savings has paid for the contract break. My bill went from $208 to $133. For me, service/speed is the same as AT&T. My teenagers don't even see a difference. PROOF right there. The T-Mo sales person tried to get me to upgrade phones, but I wanted to save a lot of money.
WARNING if you switch and have to break an AT&T contract. Pay to unlock your phone first, then switch. AT&T made me wait till my next billing cycle to unlock the phone, because they said they wouldn't unlock the phone till I paid the termination fee and the only way to do that was for the system to auto-generate the bill. Unbelievable! I couldn't use the phone for 3 weeks.
This is a no-brainer for family plan and if you get the same service coverage in your area. Cost you nothing to bring your phones over and you save $25-$30 a month per phone till you buy a new ones.
If I switched back to AT&T, my bill would be $240 for the 6GB shared plan.
WARNING if you switch and have to break an AT&T contract. Pay to unlock your phone first, then switch. AT&T made me wait till my next billing cycle to unlock the phone, because they said they wouldn't unlock the phone till I paid the termination fee and the only way to do that was for the system to auto-generate the bill. Unbelievable! I couldn't use the phone for 3 weeks.
This is a no-brainer for family plan and if you get the same service coverage in your area. Cost you nothing to bring your phones over and you save $25-$30 a month per phone till you buy a new ones.
If I switched back to AT&T, my bill would be $240 for the 6GB shared plan.
This is definitely something that applies only to you and you have that company discount to top it off.
As an individual, if I were to switch to T-Mobile from AT&T, I would gain truly unlimited data and the speed that goes with it (yes I do use a lot of data, at least 10GB+ per month) and $10 less on my monthly bill.
The only thing I can remotely agree with you on is upgrading a device. With T-Mobile you pretty much have to buy and pay for a device in full up front because they're moving away from subsidies, which can hurt if you're not prepared to pay $900 for an 64GB iPhone. If you look at it from one perspective however, you can easily upgrade your device every two years or sooner if you so choose.
I have T-Mobile and my wife has AT&T. We do frequent road trips where I have EDGE and the wife has 4G. Funny thing is, I always pull data faster on my EDGE connection vs the wife's 4G connection while we're driving down the interstate.
I also want to mention coverage vs data connection. I have coverage almost everywhere I go with t-mobile. I'm able to send texts and make phone calls almost anywhere. It's the data connection that is lacking sometimes.
I don't really understand how this is screwing people over.
If they give me the price I paid for my phone and they end my contract, then I walk away from my old carrier clean. Same as I could've done if I decided not to sign another contract with my carrier and just canceled it then and there.
Maybe I would profit a little money if I did it myself? But some people, like myself, would just go through T-Mobile for the convenience.
If they give me the price I paid for my phone and they end my contract, then I walk away from my old carrier clean. Same as I could've done if I decided not to sign another contract with my carrier and just canceled it then and there.
Maybe I would profit a little money if I did it myself? But some people, like myself, would just go through T-Mobile for the convenience.
I was thinking that this might be a good time if you have AT&T or Verizon and want a new phone, but don't have an upgrade available.
Call up the cancellation department and tell them you are going to switch all your lines over to Tmobile unless they can give you a deal on some upgrades. That most likely would work.
Call up the cancellation department and tell them you are going to switch all your lines over to Tmobile unless they can give you a deal on some upgrades. That most likely would work.
Hmm, is there really any paperwork that is being transferred that said what type of phone you have? My iPhone 5 I signed my latest contract for was stolen and now I am using my old iPhone 4. Am I out of luck then?
I looked at the T-Mobile page and here is what it said.
So it seems like you just need to bring a phone that you are currently using in and they will assess its trade-in value and credit it towards a new phone. I don't think the bill said what kind of phone you are using either...
I am so glad the Justice Department and FCC put the kibosh on AT&T's plans to buy out T-Mobile USA. Finally we have some healthy competition in the carrier market!
When I visited the T-Mobile store, they said to trade in whatever on-contract phone AT&T has on file. In my case, I would trade in my iPhone 5. However, I suppose if your iPhone 5 was stolen and all you have is your iPhone 4 you could trade that in but you're only going to get what ever the current value of it is. So if you're iPhone 4 is only worth $50 in T-Mobile's book, you'll be getting $50 towards whatever new phone you buy.
If this is the case, what you could do is buy a really cheap feature phone and use that as a your trade in, you'll probably get little to nothing for it though and have to go the subsidized route or pay in-full the cost of an iPhone 5S.
What ever the case is, I'd like to know what works for the people who make the jump. Good luck!
Activate a SIM card though the T-Mobile website and you can choose a $30 pre-paid plan that has 100 phone mins / unlimited text / 5 GB of High Speed data, per month. It's not an eligible plan for 'Un-Carrier 4.0' though.