CONFIRMED: T-Mobile US is hiking prices for legacy plans with Price Lock. So much for "Un-Carrier"!

[Invincible Sugar]

Summary

T-Mobile US is going to raise prices by $2 or $5 per line for legacy customers and current BTS customers (tablets, wearables, hotspots) on plans with locked in prices. Details were confirmed today by an early morning all managers call. While wireless carriers increasing rates for customers is nothing new, T-Mobile has historically honored prices, with some customers today still on plans from over a decade ago, and special terms called "Price Lock" in the agreement where T-Mobile promises not to raise rates. This move directly breaks one of T-Mobile's core promises to customers, and may run into legal issues with some state level Sprint/T-Mobile merger conditions, though the federal level agreement appears to allow for the change. 

 

Quotes

Quote

Simple Choice, ONE, and even Magenta plans may be seeing a price increase of $2 or $5 per line per month. This means a customer with 5 lines will see a total monthly increase of up to $25.

 

ONE plans are covered by the “Un-Contract Promise” which, at the time, was defined as “a commitment T-Mobile made to customers in 2017 that only you can change what you pay and we mean it. To show how committed T-Mobile is, if you activated your account between January 2017 and April 28, 2022, we will pay your final month’s recurring service charges if we were to raise prices and you choose to leave. Just let us know within 60 days.”

 

Some business plans are also impacted. Those customers will receive texts beginning at around 1:30pm Eastern today (5/22).

 

Voice lines and BTS (data lines for tablets, hotspots, etc) are impacted. BTS lines will be a +$2 increase.

 

My thoughts

I understand inflation is high right now. I understand T-Mobile has offered aggressive deals in the past to secure customers and growth, I myself have not been a profitable customer in my time with them. However... T-Mobile specifically sets themselves apart on this basis of not raising rates. It's been part of their marketing for years, and there are plenty of other ways to increase revenue without outright breaking promises. [1] [2] [3]

 

T-Mobile knows this, in the past they've kept their word but still increased ARPU by incentivizing customers to willingly change to more expensive plans, by adding features, device deals, etc to newer plans. They have the means to do this already, for example the new satellite SMS feature rolling out this year, which allows non-911 texting to anyone about anything from locations without cell service, and which is expected to offer limited data fast enough to text over FB messenger, WhatsApp, Discord, etc. next year... that could be included for free with current premium plans, but excluded or come at an added cost for older plans. They already said they might do that when they first announced their plans to offer it.

 

Beyond the fact that T-Mobile has taken pride in not raising rates for customers, legacy rate plans also make up a small part of their total user base. Why upset people to squeeze a relatively small amount of added revenue out of your customers? This isn't a small thing, they are breaking the single largest promise that set them apart from the competition for over a decade, it seems like a bad PR move to me, it seems like something that will only hurt them as most customers will likely leave rather than pay more for service with a company that now can't be trusted to keep its word... it's literally bad for everyone. As a customer and a shareholder I do not like this move at all.

 

Sources

https://tmo.report/2024/05/confirmed-t-mobile-is-raising-prices-on-some-legacy-plans/

https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/1cxz9on/megathread_tmobile_price_hike_on_legacy_plans/

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/t-mobile-is-raising-prices-on-some-of-its-older-plans-starting-with-your-next-bill/

 

Old Sources (from when this post was talking about a rumor)

https://tmo.report/2024/05/something-bad-is-coming-for-legacy-t-mobile-customers/

https://www.androidheadlines.com/2024/04/t-mobile-older-plans-price-increase.html

https://www.phonearena.com/news/t-mobile-older-rate-plan-prices-june_id157821

Edited May 22 by Invincible Sugar
Confirmed the previous rumor with added details.

[jaslion]

2 hours ago, Invincible Sugar said:

make up a small part of their total user base

Line HAS to up. Anything for profit.

[Donut417]

Might be time to start looking at MVNO’s for service. 

[Invincible Sugar]

On 5/21/2024 at 12:24 AM, jaslion said:

Line HAS to up. Anything for profit.

It's crazy to me, I know they want to increase profits and I know, despite the free crap they give you like hats and umbrellas and spatulas that grill their logo into your meat, they are not your friend and they exist to make money. I understand that. But why throw away the single biggest thing separating them from the other two carriers? They've had so much success already increasing revenue by adding incentives to newer plans to encourage people to switch on their own, and there is still so much more they can do in that regard, things that won't meaningfully impact costs, but will add perceived value and encourage plan migrations, like they've been doing. Now they've gone and broken their word on their biggest promise to consumers, it's just going to cause damage long term as people wake up and realize the cool company that told their competition to wake up and start treating customers right, is now just as bad as the rest. So much PR damage there, for so little gain.

 

On 5/21/2024 at 9:12 AM, Donut417 said:

Might be time to start looking at MVNO’s for service. 

I like Visible, it's $25 taxes and fees included for unlimited service, I use 800 GB to 1 TB each month on it, never see throttling in my area, although it is rural. Unlimited hotspot speed capped at 5 Mbps is also very fair imo, particularly for the price point.

[Donut417]

4 minutes ago, Invincible Sugar said:

like Visible, it's $25 taxes and fees included for unlimited service, I

I just gotta figure out some logistics. I have 3 lines on my account. Not all MVNO do family plans, so that means Ill have 3 separate bills.

 

6 minutes ago, Invincible Sugar said:

by adding incentives to newer plans

Ive never felt the incentives were that great. I dont give a shit about them giving me an Ad supported streaming service. When I sub to Netflix, I sub for a month or two and switch out with a different service, plus I need the two screen plan. I dont really care about 5G because I browse the internet, check mail, text and do bill pay. Possible a little gaming like Bubble Witch Saga 2. The big thing we used to use was the MLB TV for my dad, but due to dumb fuckery that is US sports, my dad cant watch is Tigers due to blackouts. We bought him a sub to Bally Sports this year as an early Fathers Day gift and he can watch his Tigers, and we have a Fathers Day gift we can gift him every year.

[Invincible Sugar]

Just now, Donut417 said:

I just gotta figure out some logistics. I have 3 lines on my account. Not all MVNO do family plans, so that means Ill have 3 separate bills.

Visible does not offer family plans right now, so you would haver 3 bills for $25. However, for 3 lines there are not currently any better offers, the breaking point would be 5 lines where, currently, MetroPCS offers 5 unlimited lines for $110 including taxes/fees. But, beyond that requiring two more lines, it would also mean you're still giving your money to T-Mobile. With Visible you get the added perk of knowing your money is going to someone else, Verizon. Not that Verizon is some hero here.. but it's nice to not reward T-Mobile with your money.

 

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Ive never felt the incentives were that great.

That's fair. For me, I get multiple free phones per line on all my lines, for tens of thousands of dollars in free phones to then gift or donate, since selling them breaks ToS, but doing other things with them does not. For me, switching from One to Magenta Max, then Magenta Max to Go5G+, each time paying only a bit more since most of my lines are free, it's worth it to pay $15 or $20 more per month if it also gets me another $6000 in free phones this year.

 

For you, a normie not wasting time on silly stuff like collecting expensive phones you can't sell, that's not much of a factor. But they could still add things to make people like yourself interested, it would have been a better move than what they did.

[Invincible Sugar]

Adding link for the actual communication T-Mobile is sending to customers:

https://www.t-mobile.com/customers/plan-pricing-update-sms-v5bts2-b1

[leadeater]

Price lock forever? I'm pretty sure everyone could see that wasn't going to work out.

 

On 5/21/2024 at 4:41 PM, Invincible Sugar said:

Why upset people to squeeze a relatively small amount of added revenue out of your customers?

Maintaining old plans like that can actually be a pain for the carrier. The actual backend so support that has to be kept around and by that I don't mean hardware, just all the call and data tagging logic and accounting etc which is a non-zero amount of work and the less and less people on these old plans the worse it is time and cost investment wise.

 

Offering the price lock for 15 years as an example would have made more sense, it's long enough to be practically forever, relative to the relevance of the plan compared to +15 year later technology etc, and gives the carrier a known point in time where that cost burden can be removed.

 

Essentially this isn't about getting more out of those customers it's about removing the cost to support them.

 

@Invincible Sugar Can I ask how much the plan(s) actually cost? Before the increase. 

[leadeater]

On 5/22/2024 at 4:12 AM, Donut417 said:

Might be time to start looking at MVNO’s for service. 

How wide spread is this in the US? It's been around here for a while but there isn't actually too many of them, mainly due to low population that fighting over smaller and smaller groups of customers doesn't work out too well.

 

 

Looks like we have 12 if I can count correctly.

Edited May 23 by leadeater

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Can I ask how much the plan(s) actually cost? Before the increase. 

Im on the family choice plan. Its 4 lines for $100 a month plus taxes and fees. I pay about $145 due to fucking insurance on some of the devices.

 

But after my plan came the T Mobile one plan, then the magenta plan and not the GO plans.

[Donut417]

Just now, leadeater said:

How wide spread is this in the US? It's been around here for a while but there isn't actually too many of them, mainly due to low population that fighting over smaller and smaller groups of customers doesn't work out too well.

 

There are lots of MVNO's here in the US. The real trick is figuring out what Network they use. Because some providers have better coverage than others in certain instances. Some even use multiple networks, Google Fi is an example, though Im warry of Google, they like to discontinue shit all the time.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Im on the family choice plan. Its 4 lines for $100 a month plus taxes and fees. I pay about $145 due to fucking insurance on some of the devices.

That seems like quite a lot but I guess I'm comparing to not Unlimited data plans here. Our Unlimited data plans aren't that good either, after a "set amount" the data rate is only 1.2Mbps which is... crap.

 

 

^ About ~14 USD. There are more expensive plans with a higher "cap" before throttling but I doubt these are as good as the US Unlimited plans in terms of speeds. 

[Donut417]

Just now, leadeater said:

I doubt these are as good as the US Unlimited plans in terms of speeds. 

Some plans here in the US only have 2 gigs while some does up to 50+ gigs of Mobile data.  Some plans even you pay by the gig. Comcast and Google Fi you can do this option.

 

"Unlimited" is a bull shit marketing term. There are always limits / restrictions. At least with most mobile providers they dont charge you more if you go over. Unlike many of our cable providers. Generally if you go over on your data allotment on mobile you get throttled to 3G speeds.

[jaslion]

9 hours ago, Invincible Sugar said:

They've had so much success already increasing revenue by adding incentives to newer plans to encourage people to switch on their own, and there is still so much more they can do in that regard,

These people are not paying the price they should so they are damaging profits!

 

Legit that is the way shareholders think. They can npt give a single fuck anymore about the company reputation as well what are you going to do? Go to another big one that sucks or a smaller one that we will then just buy up so you are back to us?

 

We are in late stage capitalism where innovation and great products are no longer thr driver behind sales but rather not giving you any option but buying from x company because you need it.

[Mentalguy]

I was gonna take over the family account after my parents jumped ship. Tmobile was gonna charge me ~$200 for one line. Fuck em

[wanderingfool2]

Can anyone say lawsuit?

 

Honestly, whoever came up with the price locked guarantee forever really overestimated the demand for more data/talk/text.

 

I honestly am not sure how t-mobile could get away with increasing rates.  While they might try weaseling out using the contract, they outright advertised the prices wouldn't increase which would be in violation.  So I could honestly see a class action being started.

 

While not as extreme, Koodo [i.e. Telus] in BC offered a blackfriday deal that the agents would sell as being the price and then Koodo went and tried changing the prices like 4 months later saying that it was unsustainable or something like that.  Overall if companies can't afford to offer such a plan in perpetuity then lay out exactly the lengths and disclose things properly.