
T-Mobile CEO hints at family plan disruption in 2014 - wanghq
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57616462-94/t-mobile-ceo-hints-at-family-plan-disruption-in-2014/
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watchdogtimer
The real disruption is occurring in the MVNO space. The things the major
telcos are doing pale in comparison.

For instance, our family and parents share 5 phone on 1 plan on Ting. There is
a flat $6 monthly fee per device, and our charges are based simply on the
amount of minutes and data we use. The rates are cheap (about $0.02 per minute
for voice calls). You can use almost whatever Sprint-compatible device you
want (we use some cheap Nexus S phones we bought used from a reseller) and can
add, remove, or swap devices at anytime through their online interface. If
your outside of Sprint's network, voice calls will roam over Verizon's network
at no extra cost. You are free to do whatever you want on Wi-Fi at no cost,
and there if no charge for tethering, either.

Their customer support has been superb. We've called them a couple of times
when we had some issues activating a new device (mostly my mistakes) and
someone knowledgeable picked up the phone immediately. No waiting, no
transferring between CSRs.

Similar innovations are occurring with other MVNOs like Republic Wireless. Why
people are sticking with the majors I don't understand.

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RankingMember
Yep, Ting is great. I wish they had more consistent support for newer phones,
but I'm willing to accept the trade-off for the huge cost savings.

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iandanforth
I cannot recommend T-Mobile to anyone any more. Their biggest liability is
their customer service infrastructure, which is manned by the same, poorly
trained, helpless, and degraded staff as always. In a recent debacle where
they forced me into a new plan but promised (in writing) it would only be
$30/m. In reality they forced me to a $70/m plan, and customer service was
totally helpless. They knew nothing of the forced transition plan, or the
letter I had received. Even the executive response team could only force
through 2 months of free service rather than honoring their promise.

While I respect the PR they are going for, the reality falls far, far, short,
due to years of 'cost management' minded outsourcing and hamstringing of
customer service. You simply cannot remake a company if you don't eliminate
the cruft of crappy infrastructure. Perhaps they could hire someone from
Zappos to start fresh.

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01Michael10
Everyone has a bad customer service story about every company but that does
not mean T-Moblie has a customer service infrastructure problem.

Recently, I switched from Verizon to T-Moblie when bought a Nexus 5 on day
one. The SIM card I had ordered would not automatically activate which was not
a surprise as the Nexus 5 was not in their system (they were not offering it
yet). I also wanted their unadvertised $30 plan technically only available to
Walmart and their online phone buyers. One call, everything was setup with no
problems and no hassles. Verizon is the definition of hassles from my
experience.

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portmanteaufu
I had the same experience. They had me up and running with the $30 plan
immediately.

For people wondering, the $30/mo plan is a prepaid plan that includes:

\- Unlimited Texting \- 5GB of 4G data, unlimited 2G data after \- 100
minutes, $0.10/minute after

I switched from $90/mo at Verizon. Even my heaviest overages (~200 minutes
over == $20) only get me up to $50.

Only downside: as a prepaid plan, it doesn't get the free overseas data and
texting offered in their $50/60/70 postpaid plans.

~~~
dcg
Another potential downside is that the $30/month plan does not support roaming
data. If you are in an area not covered by T-Mobile's towers you will not have
data service. Voice and text will still work fine. I speak from experience
here.

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vxNsr
Can't wait. While they don't have the best coverage everywhere, they more than
make up for it with their wifi-calling and great customer service. Right now
our family is too big to fit into one "family plan" and it's too small to make
it cost efficient to have two, so instead we bundle with our relatives, but it
means some of us are on AT&T (aka All abouT sTealing your $$, it's too late at
night to come up with a good one) and don't get the great benefits of NO
overage charges and freedom to pay for our devices only ONCE!!

I don't work for T-mobile, I just really like how they're one of the few
consumer-friendly companies out there (I don't care about their motives).

~~~
DigitalTurk
Great customer service??

I don't have experience with other mobile phone companies in the US, but
T-Mobile's customer support line is unlike anything I had ever experienced in
Europe. It made my experiences with China Unicom not seem all that bad—and
that's saying something!.

I have experienced the following things:

\- I would be on the phone for ten or twenty minutes before I could speak to
an operator;

\- The voice recognition software utterly failed for me (granted, I'm not a
native English speaker but I have few to no problems with Siri);

\- I would be connected to different departments several times, in circles;

\- I would have to enter my mobile phone number over and over again;

\- The operators were entirely clueless about SIM cards for iPads and about
their inability to accept foreign credit cards.

It's very much reminiscent of calling a national phone company for support in
Europe in the 80s.

Also, I've been in T-Mobile shops where they didn't know the term 'SIM card'.
They would literally ask me if it was one of those cards you put into an
iPhone, and then tell me I could only buy those online (indeed, they're not
free!).

They're also very, very expensive by European standards. Again, my previous
horrible experience with China telcos made a lot more sense after being a
T-Mobile customer. I now realize they just copy the US a little to eagerly!

Edit: Here's an example. When you would call to top up your SIM card they
would enumerate all the plans you could get starting from the most absurdly
expensive plans that you wouldn't otherwise realize existed. A reasonably
priced plan would only come in as the 7th option and it would take a minute or
more before they'd tell you what button to press. It was a very painful
process to top up my SIM card and I imagine that if I lived in the US longtime
I'd ultimately give in and just get a monthly plan that I didn't really want.

~~~
maaku
Unfortunately that is entirely par for the course here in the U.S. of A.

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blisterpeanuts
My biggest complaint with tmo was their lack of international calling once I
drive north into Canada or hop the Atlantic. Now, at least they offer
inexpensive calling and texting in Canada, and I'm looking forward to testing
the service on our next Canada trip this summer.

Coverage isn't as thorough as the majors, but everything else about tmo is
good: easy policy about bringing your own device, tethering, promoting Nexus,
responsive customer service (in my experience, and top rated by Consumer
Reports, year after year).

I'm intrigued by the lifetime data tablet offer; sounds too good to be true.
Amazon revoked their lifetime data for Kindle, so I'm wondering whether tmo
can be relied upon for an entire lifetime.

The CNET article mentions the idea of buying out customers of competitors. Now
that's disruptive. It's a bit ironic that people are loathe to pay $200 to
break a contract, yet spend $2 a day, 250 days a year, for coffee. Anyway,
brilliant idea because they'll make back the buyout costs over time, and there
are more than a few customers who'd love to stick it to ATT and Verizon.

