T-Mobile today announced a new feature of its Simple Choice wireless plans that adds free roaming services in Canada and Mexico. The new feature, which will be available to all T-Mobile Simple Choice customers starting on Wednesday, July 15th, includes free calling and texting services to and from Mexico and Canada, as well as 4G LTE data service in both countries at no additional charge.
The new services for travelers to Mexico and Canada are an expansion of T-Mobile's free international data roaming that was introduced in 2013. However, the new plan includes calling and LTE services, where the original international roaming services were limited to 2G speeds unless customers paid for faster access.
T-Mobile says its new plans are significantly more attractive than options from the other major carriers, which charge high fees for using calling and data services in Mexico and Canada. CEO John Legere says the new plan lets users that travel in and out of Canada and Mexico access the same services that they have throughout the US at no additional charge. The data used by customers in Canada and Mexico will come out of the same bucket that their domestic data use comes out of. Legere says T-Mobile partnered with "the number one and number two carriers in Canada and Mexico" for its roaming service, but he did not say what those carriers are specifically.
The carrier will be hosting a media call for today's announcement later this morning and we will add any new information about the plans here. In the meantime, you can see CEO John Legere's video announcement of the Canada and Mexico services below.