iPhone 5 is coming to T-Mobile April 12 for $99 with no contract required. It is the first mobile carrier to offer iPhone without a contract, and service on T-Mobile will be $1000 less than with Verizon and AT&T over a two-year period.
T-Mobile’s “Un-carrier” move is a radical departure from how the mobile phone business has worked for several years. They’re pretty much dumbing all the things we hate about mobile phone service.
“These bold moves serve notice that T-Mobile is canceling its membership in the out-of-touch wireless club,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile USA, Inc. “This is an industry filled with ridiculously confusing contracts, limits on how much data you can use or when you can upgrade, and monthly bills that make little sense. As America’s Un-carrier, we are changing all of that and bringing common sense to wireless.”
Customers start with one line at $50 per month for unlimited talk, text, and web plus 500MB of high-speed data. A second line is $30 per month and each additional line is $10 per month. If you need more data, that is $10 per month more for 2 GB, or $20 more for unlimited 4G .
T-Mobile also is eliminating most of the distinction between pre-paid and post-paid plans. Everything is the same except for when you pay. If you have bad credit, you pay at the start of the month. If you have good credit, you pay at the end of the month.
At an event in New York, the carrier with the pretty pink commercials announced they would also be rolling out LTE in seven markets: Baltimore, MD; Kansas City, KS; Houston, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; San Jose, CA and Washington D.C. LTE will deliver mobile downloads at 10-20Mbps and uploads at 8-12Mbps.
In addition to iPhone, T-Mobile will also offer HTC One and BlackBerry Z10 each for $99 and no contract.
