T-Mobile to end smart phone subsidies next year

[JohnHovah]

It does not end the required 2 year contract.

 

Thank you for that takeaway.. Therein lies the real issue. If you are paying full price and not seeing a reduction in your bill (although some carriers do) you are still locked into a contract.

[bigsnake49]

Yeah, if they actually did not force you into a contract, then the value plans would be worth it. As it is, thanks but no thanks, particularly with the reduced coverage vis a vis other providers.

[Deval]

I'll play devils advocate for this topic.

 

For value customers who want simple phones, or what we like to call, feature phones, this model works exceedingly well. Plus, T-Mo does offer great service for the value, if you are in a good coverage area. I use my family as an example. They do not upgrade devices every year/month/day/week/minute like us, and rarely travel outside the tri-state area. For them, T-Mo offers the cheapest calling plan for families, with the very limited usage they actually have.

 

T-Mo will always be a player in the market, just a smaller one, more niche then anything else.

[4GHoward]

I am really interested to see how T-Mobile Network Modernization works out especially with the iPhone running on T-Mobile 3G, HSPA+, and LTE. It will also be interesting to see how good is the voice quality if T-Mobile will offer Wi-Fi Calling on the iPhone. I remember when Sprint first released the iPhone that there were quite a bit of customers that experienced service problems with slow connections that made the data speeds unusable for some of them.

[bkrodgers]

As has been said here, the contract requirement on the Value plans is a deal breaker. In fact, it kind of makes me mad...there is NO justification for requiring that you sign a contract with a $200 ETF if there's no device subsidy. I mean, of course they can require it if people will sign it, but nobody should. I realize Tmo would love to still have us locked in and have us pay for our phones ourselves, but I won't sign a contract without a subsidy. I'm fine going without a subsidy as long as the monthly rate is lower (which it is on tmo) and there's no contract.

 

I do realize they have their monthly 4G plans that don't require a contract. But those have some features removed -- data roaming and call forwarding (so no Google Voice voicemail) among them.

[iansltx]

I am really interested to see how T-Mobile Network Modernization works out especially with the iPhone running on T-Mobile 3G, HSPA+, and LTE. It will also be interesting to see how good is the voice quality if T-Mobile will offer Wi-Fi Calling on the iPhone. I remember when Sprint first released the iPhone that there were quite a bit of customers that experienced service problems with slow connections that made the data speeds unusable for some of them.

 

I think one big SPrint iPhone issue was that they were funneling all iPhone traffic through one gateway in their core network. That got fixed.

 

As for WiFi calling, I don't expect that it will be available on the iPhone. Voice quality on T-Mobile is generally fine though, second only to Sprint from what I've seen.

[ChadBroChillz]

Telefonica execs warn tmobile over getting rid of subsidy.

 

Take it from someone with experience. "It was a disaster," said Tracy Isacke, director of Telefonica Digital.

 

Earlier this year Telefonica and Vodafone both decided to get rid of subsidies in Spain. The customer hemorrhaging hasn't stopped. In September alone, Telefonicalost 253,520 mobile users. Vodafone has similarly been losing customers and in Julybrought back subsidies for what it said was a limited time.

 

If all operators in a market were to get rid of subsidies, the shift could work, said Omar Javaid, managing director of BBO Global and until a couple months ago a Motorola Mobility executive. But when one operator like T-Mobile makes such a dramatic change, it's an invitation for the competitors to actually increase their subsidies to try to win more customers. "If someone wants to drop subsidies, that's an opportunity [for the competition] to go for the jugular," he said.

 

http://www.citeworld...onica-exec-says

[Rawvega]

Telefonica execs warn tmobile over getting rid of subsidy.

 

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http://www.citeworld...onica-exec-says

 

I predict t-mobile will crash and burn with this idea. As the analyst notes, this could work if all of the operators decided to go this route in a similar time frame. I think it could also work if it was VZW that was trying it. T-mobile, on the other hand, doesn't have the network, scope or appeal to pull this off by themselves.

[iansltx]

T-Mobile is going about it in a less upfront way vs. Telefonica/Vodafone. TF/VF didn't have payment plans for their handsets, and they may not have even lowered monthly pricing. T-Mobile OTOH has payment plans such that, if you want to pay for a handset in installments, you'll be saving a little money in the long run, but will otherwise be getting bills close to what you'd pay otherwise.