$70 plan to lose 5GB soft cap!

[thebryceee]

Have you try calling your own phone to hear your voice mail using one of this app? It didnt work for me on Vonage app.

I've only used it to call my wife, she said it was pretty clear.

 

[septembersrain]

Haha when did you switch to T-Mobile? I haven't been around these parts in quite some time.

I still have Boost Mobile too. Just really wanted the Note II. ^.^

 

[thebryceee]

I still have Boost Mobile too. Just really wanted the Note II. ^.^

Ahh. I dropped the Evo for a Nexus 4 hahah. I still use it as a Wi-Fi device though.

 

[Carolina Media]

Since the Unlimited data on the Postpaid value plan is also the same price at $69.99 I wonder what T-Mobile will do to differentiate these plans and give people a reason to choose the contracted value plan over prepaid. I'm guessing they will restrict their upcoming LTE network to only their postpaid subscribers.

 

[Joshb101]

The difference is going to be with a contracted value plan you'll be able to get a new phone for the $20 extra a month and with the pre-paid you still have to pay outright for a new phone.

Remember T-Mobile is trying to be unique from the other big carriers. So where as the others like ATT and Verizon prepaid options are extremely limiting T-Mobile is trying to offer the same access as their contracted plans just with the caveat of if you want a new phone you have to pay outright for it.

 

[jhawkkw]

Since the Unlimited data on the Postpaid value plan is also the same price at $69.99 I wonder what T-Mobile will do to differentiate these plans and give people a reason to choose the contracted value plan over prepaid. I'm guessing they will restrict their upcoming LTE network to only their postpaid subscribers.

Probably, considering Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint don't allow pre-paid users onto their LTE networks at this point in time.

 

[mogelijk]

Probably, considering Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint don't allow pre-paid users onto their LTE networks at this point in time.

That isn't really a fair comparison. Neither AT&T nor Verizon are competitive for prepaid, and Sprint has just had LTE a few months and still only in limited (12?) cities. I'm not sure why the MVNO's on Verizon's and AT&T's networks aren't allowing LTE, if they are too cheap to buy the access or that Verizon/AT&T don't want to sell it. Additionally, the rumor is that Sprint (through Boost and Virgin Mobile) will be allowing LTE in the next couple of months and MetroPCS already allows their prepaid users to use LTE.

I think T-Mobile will allow Monthly users to use LTE. The biggest limited factor, in the short term, will likely be that most users won't have phones that support LTE, as well as the limited availability of LTE for the next year. Also, as others have said, the huge advantage with the Value Plan is that people can buy a phone with a no interest loan, rather than having to buy it outright.

 

[septembersrain]

That isn't really a fair comparison. Neither AT&T nor Verizon are competitive for prepaid, and Sprint has just had LTE a few months and still only in limited (12?) cities. I'm not sure why the MVNO's on Verizon's and AT&T's networks aren't allowing LTE, if they are too cheap to buy the access or that Verizon/AT&T don't want to sell it. Additionally, the rumor is that Sprint (through Boost and Virgin Mobile) will be allowing LTE in the next couple of months and MetroPCS already allows their prepaid users to use LTE.

I think T-Mobile will allow Monthly users to use LTE. The biggest limited factor, in the short term, will likely be that most users won't have phones that support LTE, as well as the limited availability of LTE for the next year. Also, as others have said, the huge advantage with the Value Plan is that people can buy a phone with a no interest loan, rather than having to buy it outright.

By March Boost Mobile will have LTE. At least that's the word from our Regional Rep.

Virgin Mobile will get it shortly after. Though they may decide to give it to them first since Virgin Mobile already flopped on the WiMAX introduction.

I think that T-Mobile will likely give LTE to their prepaid but it's a question on pricing. It's highly unlikely it'll be unlimited considering they've made the true unlimited move with their HSPA+. That's what I think anyways.

 

[jhawkkw]

By March Boost Mobile will have LTE. At least that's the word from our Regional Rep.

Virgin Mobile will get it shortly after. Though they may decide to give it to them first since Virgin Mobile already flopped on the WiMAX introduction.

I think that T-Mobile will likely give LTE to their prepaid but it's a question on pricing. It's highly unlikely it'll be unlimited considering they've made the true unlimited move with their HSPA+. That's what I think anyways.

That's good news. Probably won't help me here because Sprint doesn't have LTE where I live, and probably won't for a while. Rochester was a launch LTE city for Verizon and it took AT&T well over a year after launch to bring it here. I don't imagine T-Mobile will bring it here any time soon either.

 

[chong67]

If 4G can do 18 mbps download(which I have seen), then why would u want to care about LTE?

 

[yfan]

Since the Unlimited data on the Postpaid value plan is also the same price at $69.99 I wonder what T-Mobile will do to differentiate these plans and give people a reason to choose the contracted value plan over prepaid. I'm guessing they will restrict their upcoming LTE network to only their postpaid subscribers.

T-Mobile has never discriminated against their prepaid plans in terms of network capacity, and I doubt they are about to begin now.

What will differentiate their contract plans from their prepaid plans will be the same things that thus far have:

• Prepaid users cannot choose a different number to forward for voicemail (they can only deactivate this feature).
• Prepaid users do not have roaming data access.

Remember that T-mobile's prepaid business has been growing while its postpaid model has seen contraction in its consumer base. Prepaid users, while not bound by a contract, present no risk of running up a bill and then not paying it, which contract users may do. They realize this is where the market is going eventually, and that they have a head start. They want to keep that head start.

 

[vwsunroof]

Does T-Mobile pre-paid get to use the roaming agreements with other providers? If not that's another differentiator from post-paid.

Edit: yfan beat me to the punch on the roaming angle.

 

[mogelijk]

Does T-Mobile pre-paid get to use the roaming agreements with other providers? If not that's another differentiator from post-paid.

Edit: yfan beat me to the punch on the roaming angle.

They can partially, T-Mobile prepaid does offer voice roaming but you do not get data roaming; so that is another difference (as yfan mentioned).

As yfan also mentioned, I also think T-Mobile will allow prepaid users LTE. I think they keep true unlimited on the $70 plan since Sprint offers unlimited. I don't believe, if T-Mobile were going to not allow unlimited LTE, that they would have introduced it to the $70 plan just a matter of months before the LTE rollout.

 

[chong67]

There will be many many people that got turn off by buying a smart phone. It ant cheap.

 

[NeXuS4]

If 4G can do 18 mbps download(which I have seen), then why would u want to care about LTE?

Quoted for obviousness. Also no battery drain...

 

[chong67]

Did you know T-mobile sold their towers to raise cash to deploy LTE?

Why upgrade to LTE when 4G is good? I dont get it.

 

[mogelijk]

Did you know T-mobile sold their towers to raise cash to deploy LTE?

Why upgrade to LTE when 4G is good? I dont get it.

Because LTE is faster, particularly the newer LTE that T-Mobile is deploying. The other advantage is much better upload speeds, HSPA+ upload speeds are little faster than 3G speeds.

 

[chong67]

I am just curious it cause alot of money to upgrade from 4G to LTE. Every phone company are moving up on this in phase n can take 2-3 yrs.

So what happen if there is another new technology better than LTE? Another wait of 2-3 yrs and special phone to upgrade?

 

[Joshb101]

So Chong T-Mobile didn't sell their towers they leased them out for 28 years with an option to buy them at the end of 28 years for $2.4 Billion. A practice which other carriers do as well.

There are several reasons for going to LTE Advanced. #1 an extremely high data throughput capability with one demonstration showing 5Gbit/s which means significant future proofing.
#2 By going to LTE it opens a wider range of handsets to be able to hop on their network and also makes phone costs for T-Mobile go down as they'll be in line with other carriers.
#3 It takes advantage of the spectrum they acquired from AT&T and Verizon and will take advantage of MetroPCS's already in place LTE service.

Will a better technology come out in a few years? Probably, though will it be so good that all the US carriers will switch to it? I doubt it unless it can get around not having enough spectrum to give terrific speeds. Remember ALL the major carriers are investing heavily in this technology so they won't be quick to change it.

 

[Gman9831]

Why its called LTE, LTE= Long Term Evolution