T-Mobile Launches Simply Prepaid Plans. Increases Data, Reduces Service Quality [Updated]
T-Mobile just announced their new “Simply Prepaid” plan which looks to double and even triple the data of their current plans. But this extra data comes at a cost that may impact customers by reducing the quality of the service and the network speeds.
The current plans range from $50 to $80 in $10 increments. With the exception of the $80 unlimited data plan, each plans include a set amount of 4G data. After this data allotment is used up, the connection will be slowed for the remainder of the month. Mobile hotspot and tethering is included and takes away from the 4G data. Streaming music from certain providers does not count against your 4G data.
Here’s a breakdown of the current plans:
The new plans shift the $50, $60, and $70 plans down $10, making them $40, $50, and $60. You might be saying, “great, cheaper is better!” However, if you use mobile hotspot or stream a lot of music, those features are no longer available on the new plans. The other important thing that kind of broke this deal for me is the “4G LTE” data is no longer 4G. The Simply Prepaid plan throttles your data speeds to 8Mbps (Megabits per second). Now, this is more than a sufficient data speed to get most things done on your smartphones, however the wording says “4G LTE”. 8Mbps throttled is not 4G LTE data, it’s slightly beefier than 3G HSPA, which clocks in at 7Mbps.
This is a pretty disappointing plan change disguised as a great deal. Hopefully they’ll fix the above issues.
There has been no word on whether the $30 Walmart 5GB Unlimited Web & Text plan or the $80 Unlimited plan will be affected by “Simply Prepaid”. The $30 Walmart plan is extremely popular, so I doubt they will alter that. (See update below)
If you are looking to lock in your current plan, you must activate your phone by January 24th. (See update below) The Simply Prepaid plans start January 25th, 2015.
Update 01/16/2015:
I’ve updated the above post to reflect the new information. As of right now, it appears that T-Mobile will be keeping their current plans to run alongside the new ones, which makes the plans a lot more palatable. As expected, the ever-popular $30 5GB Unlimited Web & Text Plan is here to stay. The current $40 and $45 may not last, so if you are looking to activate either of those plans plans, then you would have to activate by January 24th.
Sources:
http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/simply-prepaid.htm
http://fave.co/153AWPZ
