T-Mobile simplifies Pay as You Go plans
Arriving later this month, the 'Uncarrier's' uncluttered refills are much easier for consumers to understand.
T-Mobile, riding high on its prepaid momentum, is set to make it even more difficult for its competitors to catch up.
The Uncarrier announced a revamped pay structure on Monday for its Pay as You Go plan. Slated to take effect August 17, the new system provides a clear-cut flat rate for sending and receiving calls and messages.
Under the current system, prepaid customers can spend anywhere from $0.10 to $0.33 per minute for talk, depending on one of four options. To complicate things further, the minutes could expire if not used within a set time frame. Also a pain point, 4G LTE data didn't come as part of the plans, and customers with smartphones have been limited to using Wi-Fi to go online.
The new prepaid plan addresses both issues. You can look forward to a flat fee of $0.10 per voice minute and per text message for easier accounting, and T-Mobile will now sell you a "day pass" or "week pass" to get 4G LTE data. A 500MB pool of data costs $5 and is good for 24 hours; a 1GB option ($10) lasts you a week.
T-Mobile has been at the forefront of rate-plan shakeups, and its larger rivals have scrambled to follow. It'll be interesting to see if other carriers respond to T-Mobile's latest challenge.