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T-Mobile Hands Consumers a Pleasant Shocker
David Pogue OCTOBER 10, 2013
Back in March, T-Mobile burned every possible bridge it had with the other cellphone carriers. As I wrote then, it eliminated the two-year contract; you can now quit T-Mobile whenever you like.
It also became the first carrier to eliminate the infuriating
15-second recording of voicemail instructions every time you try to leave a message - a waste of your time and your callers' airtime.
And T-Mobile also ended the Great Cellphone Subsidy Con. That's where you buy a $600 phone (like the iPhone) for $200, with the understanding that you'll pay the cellphone company the rest over your two-year contract - yet after you've repaid it, your monthly bill doesn't drop!
T-Mobile was basically prancing around, demonstrating that Emperors Verizon, Sprint and AT&T have no clothes.
I was pleasantly surprised - shocked, really - since those con games have been baked into the American cellphone carriers' business plans for years. And we, the American sheep, just assumed that we had to accept them.
Apparently, lots of other people were pleasantly surprised, too. The company says that in the second quarter of 2013, it signed up 685,000 new customers - more than Verizon, AT&T and Sprint combined.
Well, on Wednesday, T-Mobile did it again. It announced an even bigger shocker: Starting next month, it will eliminate the sky-high, nosebleed, ridiculous, usurious international roaming charges that have terrified and enraged overseas travelers for years.
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