Continuing on from yesterday’s announcement, T-Mobile continues its UnCarrier announcement campaign by focusing on tablets with today’s announcement. In an effort to drive purchases of LTE-capable tablets and data usage while addressing common customer concerns about the additional expense that usually comes from adding tablets and additional data plans onto monthly service charges, T-Mobile has announced its Operation Tablet Freedom
promotion to get more customers more comfortable with adding tablets onto service plans and using them on LTE.
The promotion works like this:
- 1GB of free tablet data for the rest of the year
- 4G LTE tablets for the same model’s Wi-Fi price
- Trade in your Wi-Fi tablet, buy a new one for nothing down
- Stuck in a contract? We’ll pay your ETF with device trade in!
T-Mobile will begin to allow customers on Simple Choice plans the option to add a tablet to their existing monthly service for free for 1 year starting on April 12th. T-Mobile will grant an additional $10 discount for adding a tablet onto monthly voice service in addition to the standard $10 mobile broadband discount T-Mobile gives customers when adding a mobile broadband line to an existing voice line. This makes the $20 monthly charge for 1GB of data access free for the year.
The tablets get an additional 1.2GB of data every month free for a year rather than the standard 200MB of free lifetime data. This will apply to new and current customers buying a new tablet, trading one in, or bringing their own compatible LTE tablet for activation.
LTE tablet purchases will also qualify for the Equipment Installment Pricing financing allowance on Simple Choice plans with the additional discount provided by T-Mobile that will see LTE tablets being priced at the same MSRP as the Wi-Fi only versions, making them even more attractive to customers that would normally buy the Wi-Fi only versions to save money and T-Mobile will also allow Wi-Fi tablet trade ins towards the purchase of an LTE tablet with financing, potentially saving customers hundreds over just buying the Wi-Fi version of a tablet.
There are also terms to the equipment installment plan allowance at the discounted price such as on the EIP, you have to sign up to a 1GB postpaid mobile data plan, which you’ll effectively get for free if you have a voice plan as well. Here’s one of the terms when considering both offers: “Balance paid in monthly installments. Must remain on qualifying service in good standing for duration of EIP agreement.”
You get 1GB of tablet data for free this year with the discounts in place, but after that, you have to keep paying for it at standard rates until you’ve paid off the tablet in order to meet the rest of the requirements for the promotion. Additional caveats also apply, such as the promotional discounts ending on December 31st of this year rather than the date of activation.
Also, the tablet has to be activated as a companion to a Simple Choice voice plan in order for the $10 dollar discount on voice to remain in place, but the charge for 1GB would be added with the January 2014 bill according to the Terms and Conditions for the promotion, which would then make it $10 a month for 1GB of data, as the additional $10 promotional discount to make the data access free goes away:
“$10 off 1 GB option; after promotional period (12/31/2014) 1 GB option is $20/mo. $10 discount for qualifying voice service may continue after promotional period. $10 Voice Discount: Requires one other line of post-paid phone service on the same account. Qualifying postpaid voice & mobile internet service required for free 1GB data. 200MB free data for life for as long as you own and use your registered device on T-Mobile’s network.”
Even with the caveats in place, T-Mobile looks to have a compelling offer for customers that want an LTE tablet and be able to use it outside of Wi-Fi, but the key is to keep those caveats in mind before taking advantage of the offer to avoid any surprises.
Now within two days, T-Mo has shacked the $#%$ of big bros…. great offers by T-Mo for those who are still neglected….