T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) plans to keep rolling with its "Uncarrier Amped" announcements, at least according to COO Mike Sievert, who teased that another promotion or offering from the company is coming this week.
The carrier plans to introduce a new service plan option either on or before Wednesday, according to a CNET report. "We've got something big, bold and cool coming that people will love," Sievert told CNET.
Sievert didn't provide a lot of detail, but the new offering will come on the heels of T-Mobile's announcement last week that it will not charge any roaming fees to customers who travel to Mexico and Canada. T-Mobile also recently introduced a new version of the "Jump!" handset upgrade program that lets customers lease their smartphones, pay for them in installment plans and upgrade their smartphones up to three times every 12 months.
The new offerings are all part of an effort to intensify previous "uncarrier" plans the carrier has rolled out over the past two years and to pressure rivals during the summer, when there is typically a lull in promotions ahead of the holiday shopping season in the second half of the year.
Under T-Mobile's "Mobile without Borders" program, the carrier is extending its coverage and calling across the United States, Mexico and Canada for all its Simple Choice customers at no extra charge. T-Mobile said customers will use LTE data straight from their Simple Choice LTE data plans when in Mexico or Canada. T-Mobile customers in the United States also can make unlimited calls to users in Mexico and Canada. T-Mobile cautioned, though, that more than half of customers' usage must happen in the United States for them to be eligible for the offering.
T-Mobile said starting on Wednesday every new Simple Choice customer will get Mexico and Canada included in their plan at no extra charge. Current T-Mobile Simple Choice customers can add the offering to their service by opting in online, by phone, or in-store--though they must sign up for a current Simple Choice offering (and therefore will have to forfeit any expired promotions they may still be receiving).
Yet Sievert said any customer who signs up or switches to one of T-Mobile's plans on Wednesday will get the cross-border benefits. Additionally, one of the plans customers can sign up for to get "Mobile without Borders" is the yet-to-be-announced option designed for those customers on promotional plans who are looking to switch.
T-Mobile's push comes as AT&T (NYSE:T) is pushing into Mexico. After spending $4.4 billion to purchase Mexican wireless operators Iusacell and Nextel Mexico earlier this year, AT&T last month promised to spend $3 billion during the next four years to cover 100 million people in Mexico with LTE by the end of 2018. AT&T has said it is creating the "first-ever North American Mobile Service Area covering 400 million people and businesses in Mexico and the U.S." AT&T said that starting this month its Mexican customers can take advantage of the company's "North American Mobile Service Area."
T-Mobile made its roaming deals after AT&T pushed into Mexico, Sievert said. "We created a new arrangement with new economics," Sievert said, without elaborating on the roaming agreements.
For more:
- see this CNET article
- see this TMoNews article
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