T-Mobile announced its latest Uncarrier moves this morning, almost all of which appear to be tied directly to the New T-Mobile merger closing successfully. To clarify, should the lawsuit currently holding up the merger prevail in the courts, we probably won’t see these things.
T-Mobile is announcing the following things to make it appear that the New T-Mobile is a great thing for customers and for America in general. I’m a super patriotic American, so let’s go over what was announced.
T-Mobile Connect
Should the merger take place, New T-Mobile is committed to offering a $15/month prepaid plan to customers in the US and Puerto Rico. For that price, customers will get unlimited talk and text, as well as 2GB high-speed data. 5GB of high-speed data will cost $25/month. On top of being cheap, T-Mobile states that for each year someone has an active account, they will receive an upgrade to their data plan of 500MB/year for up to 5 years. That’s an extra 2.5GB over 5 years.
T-Mobile Connect is another part of the New T-Mobile’s previous pricing commitment, which includes providing consumers access to the same or better rate plans at the same or better prices for three years. And this unprecedented low-cost plan will further spark competition and drive prices down across the industry, for everyone!
Considering the cheapest plans currently available are around $30, a $15/month plan for those who need inexpensive access sounds great.
Project 10Million
Another commitment the New T-Mobile is making is to close the US homework gap. Right now in the US, 15% of the households that have children do not have home internet. With the number of US teachers assigning online homework growing, New T-Mobile wants to help kids get the access they need.
According to the company, the New T-Mobile’s Project 10Million would be a $10 billion commitment that will deliver free internet access over the next five years and another $700 million commitment in hardware to 10 million households. Eligible households in the US and Puerto Rico would receive up to 100GB of “FREE” internet access each year, one “FREE” mobile WiFi-enabled hotspot, plus the option to purchase select WiFi-enabled devices at the New T-Mobile’s cost. Additionally, Project 10Million recipients will benefit from the New T-Mobile’s expanded 5G capabilities.
Connecting Heroes Initiative
T-Mobile is also announcing a major commitment to first responders should the New T-Mobile become reality. The company is committing up to $7.7 billion over 10 years to provide free talk, text, and data to every first responder in the country. Yes, you read that right.
Through Connecting Heroes, the New T-Mobile is making an up to $7.7 billion, 10-year commitment to make FREE unlimited talk, text and smartphone data available to EVERY first responder at EVERY public and non-profit state and local police, fire and EMS first responder agency across the entire country!
T-Mobile goes on to say that first responder plans will have top priority on their networks, regardless of how much data they use.
First responder agencies are urged to pre-register here.
T-Mobile literally ends its announcement post with, “T-Mobile can make these commitments if the proposed T-Mobile and Sprint merger closes.”
I suppose that means T-Mobile is dangling these treats in front of consumers in an effort to garner public approval, which will then trickle up to those in charge. We’ll see what happens.
// T-Mobile