Comments on: How T-Mobile’s smartphone pricing could change the U.S. wireless industry

By: Lenny

Lenny — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:43:08 +0000

The American mobile market is rediculously behind in technology compared to markets abroad in Europe and Asia. The subsidy model limits the amount of handsets we can get, limits/slows the progress of software updates, and limits the selection of hardware we can choose from. I am very glad to see T-Mobile as the first to come face to face with this fact and do something to change it. It may take a moment to seed, but I have no doubt this is the best news the US mobile consumers will hear this year.

By: Rex McRickner

Rex McRickner — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 21:56:09 +0000

T-Mobile’s new social marketing model through a company called Solavei is a smart move. People are tired of the contracts and the loud advertisements.
If you pay people to share a great plan ($49 for UNLIMITED everything with no contracts) with others, it will grow because it is based on trust between people.
I got involved with Solavei and am on my way to earning a couple extra thousand dollars per month in “mailbox money”. Most people can’t do that unless they write a song or a book and earn royalties.
Me? I’m just an average guy who likes the idea of building something once and getting paid on it for years and years.
mobile49er . com

By: Jim March

Jim March — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:21:08 +0000

I’m on Tmobile saving big by walking in with a very decent phone I scored at a pawn shop for $100 cash. It’s the first 4G phone Tmobile ever offered and it’s still not bad: 800×480 screen, dual cameras front and back, Android 2.3, Tmobile-supported tethering/hotspot, room for my existing 16gig MicroSD card. It’s the HTC version of the MyTouch4G.

What Tmobile is doing here will seriously boost the used phone market, plus we’ll see cheaper Chinese stuff if you want to go that route.

On subsidy, the same class of phone I paid $100 for would run $480 – $20/mo times 24 months. Screw that. If my phone dies and I can’t fix it, fine, pull the SIM and MicroSD cards, start hunting up pawn shops again. I’m still WAY ahead of the game and I can upgrade the tech every year or two, surfing behind the current “state of the art” same way I do with laptops.

By: Fred Ogle

Fred Ogle — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:56:20 +0000

by law if your contract has ended with a cellular provider (at least here in California), they are obligated to unlock your locked cell phone for free.

By: Paul Stewart

Paul Stewart — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:07:32 +0000

“T-Mobile is upending the established business and device distribution models of the U.S. wireless industry…” That’s quite an exaggeration. Remember which company is being discussed: T-Mobile. The fourth carrier. Subpar network and horrible customer service. That T-Mobile. Hardly an industry leader, eh?

By: Seth

Seth — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:47:30 +0000

how do you figure that Sprint and T-Mo DON’T offer “all-you-can-eat”? Both offer unlimited talk-text-data, but just like the other carriers you have to pay for it.
I will give you coverage, particularly with Sprint it can be awful. 4G is subjective based on where you live, but most markets offer the T-Mo HSPA+ which, while not LTE, can get some phenomenal speeds, far faster than what an average consumer needs. Additionally, as the population becomes more and more Urban/Suburban this becomes less important. I think most people can live without a data connection for the three hours a year they spend outside a metropolitan area if it is saving them 250 a year.
These are non-factors, IMO

By: Seth

Seth — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:37:56 +0000

This is exactly what I have been planning on doing for about 3 months now. Hello Nexus 4, goodbye expensive contract from [insert my carrier here] This is going to save me about $40.00 per month on my family plan even with my discount of 18% from work, which adds up to, wait for it… $960.00 over the two year contract! I shell out $600-$700 for two phones direct from Google, I end up about $300.00 ahead. Any consumer with a calculator can figure this out, the problem is that most won’t want to.

By: Rob White

Rob White — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:32:00 +0000

Now if T Mobile could just provide some coverage. PS I just order a new dual sim candy bar phone for $19.95 from a US location. It will work with any carrier that uses SIM cards (AT&T, T Mobile, Consumer Cellular, etc.)

By: Michael Elling

Michael Elling — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:27:03 +0000

Until T-Mobile and Sprint resolve both their coverage issues, and offer all-you-can-eat bundles, they will remain marginal players at best. 30-40% of the suburban/urban population wants wide area (rural) 4G coverage. And this is the profitable, higher-end of the market; including business. People want their emails and instagrams when they go into the country.

By: Keith Tyler

Keith Tyler — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:43:52 +0000

Maybe they’ll stop charging you extra to use the same unlimited data based on what device you use it on. Or stop charging you the same minutes which ostensibly pay for cellular tower usage when you use your own home internet connection to make the same call over WiFi without a single tower involved. Or maybe they’ll stop forcing you into wholly unnecessary (and premium priced) mandatory data plans based on what phone you have. Hell, maybe they’ll even start billing SMS based on the going per-megabyte data plan rate.

Any of those would REALLY be game-changing.

But not subsidizing phones? Every single prepay customer just yawned.