Attempting to gain back a bit of momentum that T-Mobile continues to steal away, AT&T announced from MWC this week that the company will now offer unlimited messaging to land and mobile lines free of charge starting at the end of this week. Previously, AT&T charged customers $10 a month for international messaging. AT&T also announced that they are reducing the price of international calls to Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean to 1-cent-a-minute in a plan that costs $5 a month.
T-Mobile also announced very similar plans for their customers, all the way back in October. Although, AT&T claims their plans are better, since customers can call landlines as well, not just mobile.
AT&T’s very own Ralph De La Vega spoke on the announcement.
We are always looking for ways to keep our customers happy. The offer we have is better than T-Mobile’s, because on ours it isn’t just landlines, it includes mobile as well.
We feel as if Ralph should be a bit more transparent, since it’s not only wireless customers they are trying to please. According to Bloomberg, AT&T stock have fallen 9% over the past year, while T-Mobile’s has grown a whopping 62% thanks to a switch to no-contract plans, quicker phone upgrades, and payment financing.
Over the past three quarters, T-Mobile has signed up a new 2.1 million monthly customers, while AT&T announced that in Q4 of 2013, they signed up 566K, which is quite the slow down when compared to the previous year’s 780K of new subs.
For the consumer, it’s great when you have two giants going after one another. Prices go down, customer services goes up, and we the consumer benefits. Hooray.
Update: T-Mobile reached out to make sure folks know of their newest announcement, the ability to call landlines and mobile lines, just like AT&T.
For example, until now, customers have had to know whether they were dialing a landline or a mobile number when calling from the US. I know this has caused some frustration over some unexpected fees. That’s not good. That’s not Un-carrier.
To fix that, I’m proud to officially announce that we’re expanding Stateside International Talk & Text, so customers can simply dial family, friends and colleagues in over 30 countries – and be completely confident that there will be NO extra charges when using this feature.
Good on you, T-Mo.
Via: Bloomberg | AT&T
This post was last modified on February 27, 2014 9:18 am