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T-Mobile shook up the wireless industry in 2013, now they want to “transform” it in 2014

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t-mobile 2014

Everyone’s got New Year’s resolutions… even if you’re a big wireless carrier who waves a magenta flag proudly. On Twitter, T-Mobile’s CEO John Legere posted a photo of him checking off the company’s 2013 goals, including the following list of big happenings that went down:

  • End 2 year service contracts
  • End upgrade runarounds
  • Make the world your network — no extra charge
  • Unleash tables and give away free data for life
  • Deliver nationwide 4G LTE network

Pretty impressive list, Tmo. So what’s on tap for the year ahead now that they’ve “shaken up” the wireless industry? They want to “transform” it. Here’s the newest list of goals:

  • Continue to remove customer pain points
  • 4G LTE — go faster, go LOUD
  • Un-shackle the family from those other guys
  • Make waves at CES 2014
  • Give AT&T a break… or not

Interesting. There’s not much we can take from that particular list except for the fact that T-Mobile wants to continue to attack the status quo when it comes to family plans, improve their 4G LTE offering, and continue trolling AT&T on Twitter and in ads. We’re also reminded that the company plans to unveil unCarrier 4.0 at CES, an event we’ll undoubtedly look to cover.

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

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49 Comments

  1. Bring an end to throttling!!!

    1. They already have. They have unlimited phone data without throttle and offer cheaper data plans than unlimited that do throttle. Unless you’re asking them to bring back data overages for those cheaper plans? Which would be insane.

      1. I have unlimited data and when on lte(hspa+ is unaffected), if I’m downloading a file over 100mb, it slows down to a crawl

        1. This is an ongoing problem shared by many t-mobile customers.

          They pushed out a patch to all their towers a 2 weeks ago that was supposed to fix this, but if you are still having problems, bring it to a store and complain. Have a sample download ready that you can perform in front of them.

          http://www.tmonews.com/2013/11/noticing-drastically-reduced-download-speeds-youre-not-alone/

        2. I believe that was actually a glitch on tmobiles back end that they have since acknowledged and corrected.

        3. Had that issues for like a day or two

      2. unlimited and not throttle and I don’t have to sign a contract? price? I was unaware of this. I went to tmob little over a month ago and they told me I had to be on contract for that.

        1. Yup. Its $70/month prepaid OR post paid. If you go post paid you have the ability to break up a device across 24 installments. No contract. They even give you 2.5gb of tethering. The tethering throttles but nothing you do on your phone will ever be throttled.

        2. You can get on the tmobile choice plan with unlimited talk and text and then add a 2.5gb data plan or an unlimited data plan. What plan are you on?

        3. Yes. It’s called simple choice. It’s $50 for unlimited talk and text and then you add the data package you want. The $20 data package gives you unlimited data with no throttling on the phone age and 2.5gb data for hotspot.
          I have the simple choice plan for 2 lines. 1 line at unlimited the other at 2.5gb. After my work discount my monthly charge is $93.50 before taxes

    2. That’s not going to happen. Throttling only happens when your on the 2.5gb plan. Switch to the unlimited and there is no more throttling. Even at the highest price data plan tmobile has some of the best prices.

      1. They throttle on the $50 unlimited plan….

        1. Yes. Depending on the data plan you get. So if you get the $10 2.5gb data they’ll throttle after 2.5. If you get the $20 data bracket you get unlimited data on phone with no throttling and 2.5gb of hotspot.

  2. can’t wait.

  3. Please don’t merge with Sprint.

    1. I don’t see how the government would let that merger through after stopping the att one. I don’t need to do an extensive study to figure out how the removal of Tmobile from the marketplace would effect competition. Att, Verizon, and Sprint all were directly impacted by Tmobile by following them with the early upgrade programs and Tmobile has seen huge subscriber gains . The at&t merger was more justifiable from an anti trust perspective in some ways.

      1. The merger’s unlikely to happen, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

        I give it 1:25 odds.

      2. AT&T merger was way less justifiable. Think about it this way, you have 2 carriers rig now with roughly 80-90 million subscribers a piece. They have no impetus to complete with the better deals provided by the smaller carriers whereas Sprint and T-Mobile have to dangle a few carrots just to keep the customers they have, but they can’t really effect any change in the industry because their subscriber count is so much smaller than AT&T and Verizon. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really want to see a Sprint/T-Mobile merger. Then we’d have 3 mega-carriers and I’m sure they would just find a way to collude among themselves. However, it could be argued that a merger of the 3rd and 4th largest carriers would allow them to more effectively compete with the behemoths that are Verizon and AT&T.

  4. If they announce that they are going to credit us back our ETFs I’ll switch immediately. I have a 22% discount with AT&T and could still save money by switching.

  5. Just don’t transform into Sprint.

  6. [?] Rollover LTE Data

    Rollover LTE is all it would take for me to switch from the awesome $30 prepaid plan (100mins voice + 5GB of LTE, then unlimited 3G), to the $50 post-paid, though who knows if that makes much sense being on the table with “unlimited” also there.

    I rarely use more than a couple gigs a month (being on WiFi mostly) unless I choose to “abuse” my plan, but when I do, it’d be nice to have a 12-month buffer to use instead of reverting to slow unlimited. The other perks of the post-paid plans would then make it worth it the extra $240/year to me (unlimited voice; jump+insurance; conditional call forwarding (for Google VM); roaming; etc).

    1. They have data/text only simple choice plans now just no truly unlimited. You could do 6.5GB w/ unl texting for $50/month for example. More expensive than your setup but still cheaper than truly unlimited

  7. Competition is good. Good for everyone.

  8. He left off: Make that chick in the commercials get naked!

  9.   John Legere still can’t address the elephant in the room which is coverage. This guy is getting annoying.

    1. just move to a real city.

      1. My city of 150,000 still has 3G… no HSPA+ or LTE.

        1. 150,000? Like he said… move to a REAL city.

          1. Here in Atlanta the COVERAGE BLOWS ASS. Guess we aren’t big enough for tmobile?

          2. That is funny because aren’t you guys a metro PCs area ? So glad I get coverage

          3. Not everyone lives in Atlanta. Sooner or later they will get there and improve coverage. Sprint blows almost everywhere. With tmobile at least in the areas that have coverage service is on par or better to att and verizon. I’m just glad I live in an area that has good tmobile coverage and when I travel I still have great coverage.

          4. They are on par with AT&T because they roam on AT&T. When there is no TMo coverage, you are on AT&T

          5. cant speak on your specific situation as i dont live in atlanta personally, but i did visit last spring as i have cousins who live there, and one of them has tmobile, he says he has no issues, and i didnt experience any when i visited.

      2. Why? At&t/Verizon both have lte where I live, and that’s in the sticks. Even in the closest “city”, t-mo still has shoddy coverage.

    2. No doubt! This guy is a clown, brought aboard to get tmobile in shape for purchase. This guy is NOT IN IT for the long term.

      1. He might be a joke but he’s getting things done. 2 years ago tmobile was horrible in my area. Now they are faster and more reliable than att and verizon here where I live. Plus I still have my sprint phone alongside my new tmobile service and tmobile surpasses them every time in speed and reliability indoors. My brother in law has verizon and I’m getting faster speeds than him.
        yes they may not have verizon like coverage but you can’t just make coverage come out of nowhere.
        For adding more LTE sites in just a couple months compared to sprint’s slow rollout I think tmobile is doing a pretty good job. They may not be there yet but their getting there

    3. What can he say? T-mobile simply doesn’t have cash to build out the network. They currently have only $4 billion that they plan to spend on spectrum good for rural deployment and urban building penetration. After that they will have to borrow money again for the actual network deployment. They already owe $20 billion in debts so raising money is not that easy. Remember John took over the company in a bad shape.

  10. copy Vodafone Australia prepaid plan:

    $30 for 28 days, 1gb data + unlimited text + 450 flex credit which can be used for minutes domestic and international or buying more data (350 mb @ 16 credits).

    flex credit works out to ~300 minutes if all talk or 10gb if all data.

    i just got back and it was awesome. and they even give the SIM cards for free, no $10-25 SIM starter pack free

    oh and that’s what being in 3rd place behind Telstra and Optus does for competition

  11. Thank you looking forward to see what tmobile has to show for CES

  12. I am definitely looking forward to see what tmobile has this year. I am one of those that recently jumped over to magenta and I have to say that I am loving it. Ive never had data speeds be so constant, reliable and fast. And my signal coverage although slightly less in some smaller towns is still workable. Can’t Wait!

  13. Hopefully Sprint won’t ruin them after the purchase.

    1. Don’t count on it. Less competition will mean we consumers lose. After all Sprint ruined itself, expect the same of Tmobile unless Softbank is in charge. If it’s softbank I expect pricing to go down like they did in Japan

  14. T-Mobile is definitely stirring things up. I was seriously considering going with them but I ended up getting the Moto X with Republic Wireless and am completely happy with 5 gigs of data a month for a great price.

    1. Ins’t Republic Wireless only 3G on Sprint? How is there coverage?

      1. The sprint coverage here wasn’t bad with my old 3g phone on virgin mobile but it works much better with the moto x on RW. I do have 4g available with rw but honestly I don’t see the need for it. I’m able to stream my music so I’m good.

  15. I am pretty sure that I can explain what “Un-shackle the family from the other guys” means.

    When I recently switched over to T-Mobile last week to get my Nexus 5 I had to leave my family plan on VZW. The manager at the store said that if we came back in a month he would be able to cover all of the fees for canceling the whole family plan contracts on VZW if the whole family switched over. Maybe T-Mobile is planning to offer to cover all early termination fees for family plans?

  16. I would be happy with ‘provide service outside of city limits’ :P

  17. Tmo has been getting better. I’ve been seeing it. At my friend’s apt earlier this year, I had to leave my phone by his patio door to get 4G LTE. Now I’m walking around the apt., walking to my car, to the store and back and still had 4GLTE.

    So yea. I’ve been seeing improvements. Can’t wait.

  18. i used to be a t-mobile customer. it’s cheaper than att and verizon. BUT signal is usually off in my area. wish they had better signal. i live in central jersey. does anyone know if signal already improved?

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