T-Mobile Unveils Contract-Free Value Plans

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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T-Mobile runs well behind Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Sprint-Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) in the race for wireless customers in the United States, despite its upcoming marriage with MetroPCS Communications Inc. (NYSE: PCS). The division of Deutsche Telekom means to change that with a revolutionary plan that will allow customers to buy phones that do not carry the two-year subscription packages that its rivals have.

Many consumers consider these plans onerous because they are a financial block to buying new phones and moving from carrier to carrier without large penalties. To thwart its larger rivals, according to SlashGear:

T-Mobile’s new contract-free value plans have just gone live. All of the new plans will have unlimited calling and unlimited texting included. The cheapest plan available is the $50 unlimited talk, text, and 500MB of data plan. If you want to increase your data limit, you can do so for an accumulative $10 charge. So for the 2GB plan, you’ll have to pay $60, 4GB you’ll have to pay $70, etc. After you reach your data limit, your data will be throttled to 2G speeds. All of the tiered data plans come with free Mobile Hotspot, so you can tether your phone to your laptop or PC.

Early sales will show whether this convenience will trump the brand loyalty that Verizon Wireless and AT&T have taken so many years to create.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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