The wireless price war continues.
AT&T on Friday joined in on the fighting through its Cricket Wireless business, offering customers a $100 bill credit through October 18 for T-Mobile and Sprint customers who port a number to Cricket.
And today T-Mobile said it would quadruple the monthly data allotment for customers on the company’s Simple Starter plan for an additional five dollars a month. Customers who previously received 500 megabytes of LTE data will now get 2 gigabytes for the extra five dollars.
In Friday’s press release, Cricket Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Janna Ducich said, “We give consumers straightforward, affordable pricing, offer nationwide 4G LTE coverage, and reward their loyalty.”
In today’s press release, T-Mobile President and CEO John Legere said “People who use loads of data use T-Mobile. And it’s no wonder. The old-guard telecoms punish people for using more data on their networks with crazy overage charges and fees. Get Verizon’s $50 plan and use just one gig more data, and the price jumps to $65.”
When customers reach their monthly data allotment on T-Mobile, their data rate slows but they don’t pay overage charges.
Some readers may be surprised to see T-Mobile claiming that it has “America’s fastest nationwide LTE network” just days after a RootMetrics study showed Verizon and AT&T having the fastest mobile networks. But apparently the important qualifier in T-Mobile’s statement is the word “LTE.” The Root Metrics study, based on drive tests, looked at overall mobile data quality rather than focusing specifically on LTE.
Earlier this year T-Mobile used drive test data from Ookla to supports its statement that it had the fastest LTE network.
Previously in the Wireless Price War
The AT&T and T-Mobile moves come less than a week after Sprint lowered the price on its family plans and launched a $60 a month unlimited data plan. Also within the last week, T-Mobile began offering unlimited mobile data at no extra charge for 12 months to customers who get a friend to switch to T-Mobile. The friend also gets 12 months of unlimited data for free.
