T-Mobile to drop overage charges, throttle data instead
T-Mobile CEO John Legere is at it again. The boastful Legere recently launched a three-pronged strategy to take on the U.S. wireless giants like AT&T and Verizon. He first introduced a $40/month Simple Starter plan, and followed it up with "no extra charges" for LTE versions of popular tablets (along with 1GB of additional data for voice customers).
Today, Legere announced that T-Mobiles is "[abolishing] consumer overage" charges. For example, for AT&T subscribers on a 10GB Mobile Share plan will pay $15 per gigabyte for usage over their monthly data allotment. Instead of hitting customers with fees, T-Mobile will simply throttle your data connection to sub-LTE speeds. T-Mobile's fine print on the announcement stipulates:
No overages for U.S. domestic calls, texts, and data usage only
With most customers opting for unlimited plans for voice and texting, T-Mobile's latest announcement will mainly benefit those on grandfathered voice/texting plans that regularly blow past their plan limits.
"Today I'm laying down a challenge to AT&T, Verizon and Sprint to join T-Mobile in ending these outrageous overage penalties for all consumers - because it's the right thing to do," said Legere in T-Mobile's official press release on the change. "Overage fees are flat out wrong."
T-Mobile CEO John Legere
Legere, however, took to his own blog to use more colorful language to berate AT&T and Verizon, while praising his "Un-carrier" strategy.
"If I'm right, the consumer wireless movement is rapidly approaching a tipping point. And that's when things really get interesting. The first year of Un-carrier has been terrific, but it's going to pale in comparison to what lies ahead," Legere continued.
"Imagine the smile on my face as I watch millions upon millions of Americans flipping the bird to the insanity and pain of the past and joining this consumer revolution – while I sit back and watch the competition flounder."
Those are strong words from the underdog in the U.S. wireless market. But it's only a matter of time before AT&T and Verizon respond by making adjustments to their policies as well. After all, nearly every new initiative introduced by T-Mobile over the past year has resulted in c! opycat responses from the two largest wireless carriers.
Sources: T-Mobile, John Legere's T-Mobile Blog
April 8, 2014, 1:45 PM
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Source : http://www.dailytech.com/TMobile%2Bto%2BEliminate%2BOverage%2BCharges%2Bfor%2BAll%2BPlans%2BStarting%2Bin%2BJune/article34713c.htm
