To draw in customers during the current uncertain economic climate, T-Mobile is announcing a five-year price lock guarantee along with new cellular plans that promise more value for the money.
The refreshed plans are called “Experience More” and “Experience Beyond,” and include four new offerings for Metro by T-Mobile that the company claims will feature reduced monthly costs.
“Prices have been climbing over the past couple of years. This really motivated us to make these changes,” states Mike Katz, president of marketing, strategy, and products at T-Mobile. “We aimed to address the concerns and challenges we’ve been hearing from our customers.”
To make things easier, the new plans will take the place of T-Mobile’s prior Go5G Next and Go5G Plus options. Current benefits, which include unlimited premium data along with free subscriptions to Netflix and Apple TV+, will transition to the updated plans. If you are on Go5G Next or Go5G Plus now, your plan will stay active unless you decide to change.
According to a T-Mobile spec sheet, the Experience More and Experience Beyond plans are priced $5 to $15 lower each month compared to Go5G, depending on the number of lines you have. For families, T-Mobile also indicates that the new offerings are roughly 20% cheaper than competing unlimited data plans from AT&T and Verizon.
However, the five-year price lock may have some potential caveats. T-Mobile clarifies that the guarantee covers the “price for talk, text, and data”—excluding taxes and fees. The company also informed PCMag that the price lock “includes wearable/tablets/hotspot lines added to the Experience plan —but we can’t account for uncertainties if, for instance, a streaming partner or another third party decides to raise their prices.”
The T-Mobile “Essentials Saver” option will still be available, albeit at an increased cost of $60 per month for one line, up from $50. Nevertheless, the price remains unchanged at $90 for subscribers with two or three lines.
On the Metro side, the company is unveiling four new plans—Metro Starter, Metro Starter Plus, Metro Flex Unlimited, and Metro Flex Unlimited Plus—each of which features the price lock.
The Metro Starter and Starter Plus plans are priced at $100 per month for four lines, reduced from the current $130. The Starter Plus plan stands out as particularly attractive since it offers unlimited data.
“Metro is reintroducing its classic $40 PERIOD deal with Metro Starter Plus,” the company states. “New customers who port their number to Metro can receive a free 5G phone along with a plan for just $40 a month—no AutoPay necessary and no additional taxes or fees.”
Meanwhile, the Metro Flex Unlimited and Metro Flex Unlimited Plus plans come with extra features, including an Amazon Prime subscription, 100GB of complimentary cloud storage via Google One, and a limited amount of hotspot data.
“Moving forward, these Metro plans will be our primary options for customers,” Katz states. “We wanted to streamline the choices and inform customers that T-Mobile has always been about delivering the best value.”
Katz also mentions that T-Mobile developed the price lock independently, and not in response to Verizon’s announcement of its own 3-year price guarantee. (Comcast recently introduced a five-year lock for Xfinity Internet plans as well.) “This also doesn’t imply that we’re planning to alter prices in five years either,” he adds.
Both the Experience More and Experience Beyond plans also provide free access to satellite connectivity via SpaceX’s Starlink. The service is set to officially launch in July under the “T-Satellite with Starlink” branding. However, Experience More subscribers will only have access through the end of this year before they will need to pay an additional $15 per month for it.
Experience More takes the place of Go5G Plus, adding 10 GB of hotspot data (60 GB total) and satellite connectivity that will be available until the end of the year. Customers will also have the option to upgrade every two years. Experience More is priced at $85 for a single line, although this cost does not include taxes and fees.
Experience Beyond represents T-Mobile’s top-tier plan, replacing Go5G Next. It now includes 250 GB of hotspot data instead of the previous 50 GB, and provides 30 GB of high-speed data monthly for use in Canada and Mexico, which is double the previous offering. It also features satellite connectivity and the opportunity to upgrade your smartphone annually. Experience Beyond is priced at $100 for a single line, including taxes and fees, though the price decreases with additional lines.
Both new plans come with a five-year price lock guarantee, with T-Mobile assuring that the rates for their talk, text, and data will remain unchanged for five years. T-Mobile includes Netflix with ads, Apple TV+, MLB.TV, and MLS Season Pass in both plans, while Hulu with ads is also an option with the Experience Beyond plan.
T-Mobile is launching another long-term price guarantee, but wireless consumers may justifiably be doubtful since the company did not uphold a previously advertised lifetime price lock and is currently contesting a lawsuit brought by customers who were affected by that unfulfilled commitment. Furthermore, the new plans that include a price guarantee will carry additional fees that can be increased at any time.
Today, T-Mobile revealed new plans featuring more hotspot data along with a five-year price guarantee, claiming that “T-Mobile and Metro customers can have peace of mind knowing that their talk, text, and data prices remain unchanged for five whole years from their signup date.” This guarantee pertains to the T-Mobile “Experience More” and “Experience Beyond” plans, which will debut tomorrow. These plans are priced at $85 or $100 for a single line after applying the autopay discount, which requires a debit card or bank account.
The price-lock assurance also covers four new Metro by T-Mobile plans that will be introduced on Thursday. T-Mobile’s announcement followed Verizon’s declaration of a three-year price lock three weeks ago.
If this promise sounds familiar, it’s because T-Mobile previously offered lifetime price guarantees in 2015 and 2017.
“Now, T-Mobile One customers keep their price until THEY choose to alter it. T-Mobile will never modify the price you pay for your T-Mobile One plan,” T-Mobile stated in January 2017. When a comparable promise was initially made in 2015, then-CEO John Legere mentioned that “the Un-contract is our assurance to individuals, families, and businesses of every size, that—while your price may decrease—it will not increase.”
Taxes and fees are not included in the price. About a year ago, T-Mobile raised prices for the supposedly price-locked plans, resulting in numerous complaints to the Federal Communications Commission and a class action lawsuit. Complaints were also directed to the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces laws against deceptive advertising. However, T-Mobile has yet to face any penalties.
In addition to the five-year price guarantee, there is at least one other significant pricing detail. T-Mobile’s former plans included “taxes and fees included,” meaning the advertised price comprised taxes and fees. With the new Experience plans, taxes and fees will be additional to the displayed price.
This change will initially make the plans more expensive than customers might anticipate and allows T-Mobile the flexibility to hike prices during the five-year price guarantee period since it could raise any fees associated with the new plans. The fine print in today’s press release categorizes taxes and fees as “exclusions” from the price guarantee.
The term “fees” can refer to nearly anything that a carrier opts to include on a bill and is not restricted to the carrier’s actual expenses from taxes or government mandates. For instance, T-Mobile has a “Regulatory Programs and Telco Recovery Fee,” which it explains “is not a government tax or mandated by the government; instead, the fee is collected and kept by T-Mobile to assist in recovering certain costs we have already incurred and continue to incur.”
This can cover the expenses of complying with legal obligations, “charges imposed on us by other carriers for the delivery of calls,” and the cost of leasing network facilities necessary for providing service, according to T-Mobile. In essence, T-Mobile applies a separate fee to cover the routine expenses incurred by any telecommunications service provider.
Thus, the commitment is that the basic price of a service plan will remain constant, but T-Mobile retains extensive discretion to add or raise fees on customers’ monthly bills. “Guarantee means that we won’t modify the price of talk, text, and 5G smartphone data on our network for a minimum of 5 years while you are on an Experience plan,” T-Mobile stated today. Although T-Mobile’s terms and conditions have not been revised, the terms generally refer to price promises, noting that price locks exclude “add-on features, taxes, surcharges, fees, or charges for extra Features or Devices.”
T-Mobile Consumer Group President Jon Freier, who has been with the company for around two decades, appeared to acknowledge in an interview with Fierce that customers might be skeptical of new assurances. “One of the things we’ve heard from customers is that the more clarity we can provide regarding the timing of the guarantee, the more credible and valuable that guarantee becomes,” he commented. “So we opted to launch with five years.” Freier asserted that “we are fully committed to the guarantee for the next five years.”
Freier even referenced the 2015 guarantee in a video announcement today, stating that T-Mobile is now “evolving this promise and extending it throughout our portfolio.”
T-Mobile is currently facing a lawsuit regarding its price lock policy. The likelihood of T-Mobile maintaining its latest commitment seems higher since it is limited in duration to five years, unlike the lifetime price lock, which was intended to last as long as customers retained their plans. It’s worth noting that the lifetime price lock was effective for over five years. However, T-Mobile has demonstrated that when it breaches a commitment, it is prepared to endure public criticism and litigate against its users.
A class action lawsuit concerning the invalidated lifetime price lock is still in progress at the US District Court for the District of New Jersey. T-Mobile is attempting to compel the plaintiffs to resolve the matter through arbitration, and both parties are engaged in discovery regarding whether the plaintiffs “executed valid opt-outs of Defendant’s arbitration agreement.”
In a status update from March, it was noted that T-Mobile declined to provide all requested documents from the plaintiffs, claiming that the “burden of collecting these documents far outweighs their potential relevance to the allowed scope of discovery.”
T-Mobile attempted to provide itself a loophole when it launched the lifetime price lock in 2017. While a press release made the promise appear unconditional, a separate FAQ effectively undermined it by stating that T-Mobile would only cover a customer’s final bill “if we were to raise prices and you choose to leave.” Customers were not appeased by that condition, particularly since it was located on a different page rather than within the price-lock announcement.
While it may be challenging for customers to fully believe in T-Mobile’s new commitment, they can at least review the exclusions to gauge the reliability of the new guarantee. The tax and fees exception has already been pointed out, which seems to be the primary concern. This particular element allows T-Mobile to increase your bill without technically violating its commitment not to raise the price of “talk, text, and data.”
The new plans have not yet been posted on T-Mobile’s website, so it’s possible that a more comprehensive explanation of the exclusions could be available when the plans launch. The website for T-Mobile’s Metro brand provides a slightly more detailed outline than the one found in the press release. Although there may be differences between the T-Mobile brand and Metro, the Metro page states:
The 5-year guarantee ensures we won’t alter the price of talk, text, and 5G smartphone data on our network for at least five years as long as you remain on an eligible plan. This guarantee also holds for the price of data on wearable/tablet/mobile Internet lines added to your plan. The guarantee begins when you activate or switch to an eligible plan and will not reset if you add a line or change plans thereafter. Charges incurred on a per-use basis, plan add-ons, third-party services, and network management practices are excluded.
As expected, wireless users commenting on the T-Mobile subreddit were not particularly impressed by the price guarantee. “The price guarantee is worthless based on T-Mobile’s past behavior. They might as well save the ink/electrons,” a user commented.
Many users expressed their discontent over the removal of “taxes and fees included,” along with the specific end date for the price lock that only applies to the base price. “This is them acknowledging that they harmed consumers,” one user commented. “Now we will be more transparent about when in the future we will raise your rates.”