14 DAY TRIAL // T-Mobile USA (subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG), the fourth largest mobile carrier in the US, will offer an unlimited voice calling and messaging plan to its current and future subscribers, for $99,99 per month. The announcement comes after AT&T, the leading US Mobile carrier, and Verizon Wireless, the second largest carrier, also announced similar plans for the same prices. Sprint, the third largest mobile carrier, already has an unlimited plan, but it's restricted to Philadelphia, San Francisco, Tampa and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
The new T-Mobile unlimited plan is available as of today, February 21, 2008, and includes unlimited wireless calling and unlimited messaging, anywhere in the US. Domestic roaming and long distance charges are also included, as well as picture messages (MMS) and instant messages (IM). Unlimited messaging is not included in the AT&T and Verizon plans, and this might prove to be a good reason for new customers to chose T-Mobile's offer.
"T-Mobile is passionate about helping people stick together with those who matter most, and providing them with the best value is one way we help our customers do that," said Jeff Hopper, vice president, Marketing, T-Mobile USA. "This offering empowers people to communicate as much as they like on their own terms - whether it's voice, text messaging, picture messaging or IM."
T-Mobile currently has several plans that cost more than $100 per month, including the Individual myFaves 5000, which costs $139 and offers 5000 free minutes. I assume the carrier will drop these expensive plans, as no one would chose them over the $99,99 unlimited one. Or maybe I'm not a "good assumer" and those plans will stay in T-Mobile's offer too. We'll see.
Serving about 29 million North American customers, T-Mobile is the only major US carrier that doesn't have a 3G network yet, although it announced that such a network will be functional at the beginning of this year.