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T-Mobile becomes the 'Uncarrier', drops contracts and launches LTE

T-Mobile has been teasing its bold new "Uncarrier" initiative since late 2012, and on March 26th, 2013 finally laid out its plans. The carrier has announced all new service plans that do away with contracts, and has launched LTE and support for the iPhone 5 as well. Follow along to see the details on T-Mobile's new direction, and how it works out for the carrier.

  • Adi Robertson

    Mar 1, 2013

    Adi Robertson

    T-Mobile could abolish phone contracts later this month

    T-Mobile may be unveiling its new contract-free system later this month. According to TMoNews, the company could announce its plans as early as March 4th, and set them into effect on March 24th. That would mean moving customers off contracts as they expire and ending early termination fees, while expanding its monthly options that separate the cost of a device from the price of a plan. As previously suspected, T-Mobile could also offer an installment plan to lessen the sticker shock of buying an off-contract phone. TMoNews suggests that it will attempt to offer all its phones with a down payment option of $99 or less, then add payments of $25 to $30 to bills until they're paid off.

    T-Mobile branded itself the "un-carrier" in late December, when it said it would begin selling Apple products and move away from traditional contract-based subsidies as a way to distinguish itself from AT&T and Verizon. "You love your iPhone, but you hate AT&T," it told analysts. Its plans were originally slated to take six to nine months to achieve, but that timeline was moved up in January, though we still have no official date.

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  • Dieter Bohn

    Dec 6, 2012

    Dieter Bohn

    T-Mobile finally gets aggressive: 'You love your iPhone, but you hate AT&T'

    T-Mobile Germany (STOCK)
    T-Mobile Germany (STOCK)

    T-Mobile has just wrapped an analyst presentation that was full of more aggressive forecasts for the company than we've heard since the failed AT&T merger. If its executives have their way, 2013 will be a banner year for the carrier, with investments, plan changes, network upgrades, a big merger, and a "fun" ad campaign surrounding the launch of the iPhone.

    There's a lot to unpack here, so we'll begin with LTE, which has been a thorn in T-Mobile's side. T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom, has committed to investing $4.7 billion in network upgrades in 2013 and $3 billion more each of the next two years. $4 billion of that will be dedicated to rolling out LTE, with a goal of covering 100 million people by mid-2013 and 200 million by the end of the year. The deal with MetroPCS is moving forward, and T-Mobile says that it fully expects to have regulatory approval in the first half of 2013.

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  • Nathan Ingraham

    Dec 6, 2012

    Nathan Ingraham

    T-Mobile to sell Apple products in 2013

    iphone 5
    iphone 5

    T-Mobile USA has just announced that it'll finally bring Apple products to market in 2013, making it the last major carrier in the US to do so. The company slipped this major news into a press release detailing T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom's financial plans for the years 2013 through 2015. It didn't specify which Apple products it would carry, but we'd expect to see T-Mobile sell both the iPhone and iPad, as Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T currently do. It's also not clear if these products will be LTE-capable — the carrier still has no LTE footprint in the US, but we'd be surprised to see Apple manufacture any products without LTE capability going forward. Given T-Mobile is planning to launch LTE in some capacity next year, it would make sense for these Apple products to run on the carrier's new network. We've reached out to T-Mobile and will update this post with any more details we hear about this new deal with Apple.

    Update: A T-Mobile spokesperson gave us a brief statement: "T-Mobile has entered into an agreement with Apple to bring products to market together next year. Additional details will be made available at a later date." While there's no new information here, T-Mobile also recently wrapped up an analyst presentation in which it gave more details on its strategy for the next year.

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