T-Mobile has been planning on moving solely to no-contract plans for several months now, and today is the day they go into effect. Clicking on over to T-Mobile’s website reveals no-contract plans as your only option to receive service, with some seriously competitive pricing. The default plan setup is one that offers 1 line of service, with unlimited talk, text, and data — which is throttled (to 2G speeds) after 500MB — for $50 per month. You can then slide up the scale of data in 2GB increments from 500MB to 12GB. Each bump in data adds $10 to the monthly plan, so the range is $50 for 500MB up to $110 for 12GB of data, with hotspot/tethering included in the price at each level. Hit the break for more details
The only break in the pricing scale is the unlimited data tier, which is a bit fuzzier. You can select a 100-percent unlimited data tier — as in, no throttling at all — along with the unlimited talk and text for just $70 per month. The caveat here is that T-Mobile lists that you only have 500MB of hotspot/tethering included with the plan. You can purchase an additional 2GB of hotspot for $10 per month, or 4GB for $20 per month. So for example a completely unlimited plan with 4.5GB of tethering would cost $90 per month. We really wish that T-Mobile wouldn’t split hairs like this on the tethering, but the pricing structure is simple enough (and cheap enough) that it’s hard to complain. Breaking out an extra payment for tethering separately helps keep the initial price this low, and having 500MB included is a nice bonus.
As far as family plans go, they’re no longer a separate plan structure. You can add additional lines to an account to make a “family” plan but the pricing structure doesn’t change at all. Moving from 1 to 2 lines adds $30 per month to the account, and at the moment each additional line is $0 added (although we believe this is a current promotion). Each new line has unlimited talk and text, all you have to do is make data plan choices. The data plans follow the same convention as above, and you can mix-and-match with different data allotments on each line.
Handset subsidies are also out the window. That doesn’t mean you’ll be paying a full $600+ for a phone up-front though, as T-Mobile is implementing handset payment plans for every device it sells. Each device will have a different down payment (usually around $99) and monthly installment (usually $15-$25) to pay off the complete amount, but as was the case with previous installment plans they charge no interest in the purchase.
T-Mobile hasn’t made any formal announcement about these plans going live, but that will likely be the focus of their event on Tuesday in New York City. For now, if you’re interested in browsing around and seeing what the prices would be for your own usage, hit the source link below.
More: T-Mobile