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Mint Mobile vs. T-Mobile: Same network, different plans
Mint Mobile and T-Mobile use the same 5G network, but Mint's plans favor lighter users, while T-Mobile focuses on unlimited data
Mint Mobile is a prepaid carrier owned by T-Mobile with plans designed to target lighter users looking to save money over the bloated postpaid carrier plans. Mint’s plans stick to the basics, with no streaming perks and minimal international support. For a lot of people, this is an appealing offer, and with Mint’s easy-to-understand discounts, it's an affordable alternative to the bloated and expensive plans offered by postpaid carriers.
T-Mobile 5G goes live December 6, free service promised for low-income families and first responders
Shortly after the FCC officially announced its approval of the merger between Sprint and T-Mobile, the so-called New T-Mobile is wasting no time firing up the marketing machine. The goal? To convince consumers that less quantifiable competition in the cellular marketplace benefits said consumers. It has announced a set of Un-carrier action plans that will come into place shortly, including the launch of its 5G network.
In the market for a new wireless service provider? It just so happens that T-Mobile remains the only carrier in the United States to offer a try-before-you-buy "Test Drive" to see if the network is right for you. Now, it's changing its own game up with a revamp to the program, expanding its loaner length and switching out iPhones for hotspots.
We've not covered T-Mobile Tuesdays for quite some time, but the Un-carrier has just unveiled a couple of new offers we thought you might be interested in. Using the marketing power of the Super Bowl, TV spots highlighted new partnerships with Lyft and Taco Bell.
T-Mobile has announced today that it's going to "Un-carrier" your TV with its own new service in 2018, and the company just took its first step by buying Layer3 TV, an online television provider. The motivation behind the move? John Legere—T-Mobile's exuberant CEO—says that, since T-Mobile is already disrupting the 2nd most hated industry in America, it may as well set its sights on the first: cable and satellite TV. That's... actually something we can get behind.
In John Legere's continuing effort to will himself into the role of mobile rock'n'roll Jesus, the T-Mobile CEO has released a teaser trailer for the carrier's next Un-Carrier event. Exactly what will happen at the event isn't being disclosed - in fact, the whole point of the video is "wouldn't you like to know?" We did find out that the announcement will come on January 5th in Las Vegas, not-so-coincidentally at the same time and place that next year's CES will be going down.
In the tech press, it's easy for us to regurgitate the advertising material that all of the major carriers and companies want potential customers to hear. It's more challenging to hear the voices of the people who find themselves taken advantage of by corporate practices. This work generally falls to unions and advocacy groups that do the research and speak out on their behalf.
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- T-Mobile has provided full details in a JUMP! On Demand fact sheet. In addition to the information covered here, it includes a few prices, such as $24.99 for the LG G4 and $28.33 for the Galaxy S6.
Today T-Mobile has announced Un-carrier Amped, which is basically this: you take an existing Un-carrier announcement, and you amp it up. Simple.
We in the US have a love-hate (but mostly hate) relationship with our cell phone providers. Even when they do manage to provide us with decent coverage, they tend to be real jerks about it, charging us high base prices along with added fees for anything they can get away with. And at the end of each month, they eat away whatever data is left unused, like vultures.
T-Mobile unveiled several Wi-Fi initiatives as part of Un-Carrier 7.0 that it hopes will help fill in the gaps where its network is weak and even extend coverage to places its towers have no chance of reaching. To make things better, one part of its plan doesn't ask T-Mobile customers for money, while the other is free with an asterisk. Both are publicly available starting today.
For starters, the company is now enabling Wi-Fi calling and texting on nearly every smartphone it sells to Simple Choice customers (Nexus devices not included, since they don't come with carrier modifications). T-Mobile users can also use any public or private Wi-Fi network in place of its cellular network. These calls are free, just as they've already been for people already accustomed to using T-Mobile's Wi-Fi calling.
T-Mobile says "the Un-carrier never stops" in a blog post announcing its new pay-as-you-go plan, set for availability August 17th. The carrier, which recently became the top prepaid provider in the US, is looking to simplify pay-as-you-go with a flat $0.10 cost per message or minute. The plan will have a $3.00 monthly minimum, which would give customers 30 minutes of talk or thirty SMS messages.
Saturday, April 12th is increasingly looking like a big day for T-Mobile. Yesterday the carrier introduced its new "Simple Starter" plan going for $40. Now, for day 2 of 3 "un-carrier" announcements leading up to this weekend, T-Mobile has unveiled "Operation Tablet Freedom." This offer entices customers to purchase LTE versions of tablets for the same price as the Wi-Fi versions. The company will then provide 1GB of free 4G LTE data for the remainder of the year in addition to the 200MB of free data lasting for the life of the device. Like yesterday's announcement, this deal will become available two days from now.
The Uncarrier itself is shaking things up again with phase three of its plan to change the mobile industry. As rumored earlier today, T-Mobile just announced unlimited global data for no extra charge in over 100 countries. That's massive – so massive, in fact, the (un)carrier is now able to say that its data network is larger than Verizon's and AT&T's combined. Massive.
T-Mobile's "Un-carrier" re-branding changed the game. It took what those of us in the US know about wireless contracts, threw that out the window, and offered something different. And the company is excited about that. This morning, T-Mobile CEO John Legere took the stage in New York to not only talk about the tremendous growth the company has seen since launching its Un-carrier initiative, but also to announce more new features – the company's boldest moves yet.