T-Mobile Family Plan Data Upgrade

[lupi]

Anyone seen the offer from TMO with 4 lines at 10gb (2.5 per) for 100 with unl talk/text?

I have a real old family plan with 3 lines, unlimited data on one and unlimited text (100 min), but thinking about finally swapping over to get data on the others. Pay about $90 now after monthly discount, so bumping up just a little to get data on the other lines doesn't sound bad, and as my main line still stuck at 3g for the foreseeable future the loss of "unlimited" doesn't seem that off putting. And that line rarely comes close to 1gb unless I do large document downloading.

 

[paperwastage]

t-mobile no longer charges overages, so technically it's unlimited minutes for you

It's $100 plus taxes (maybe 10-25% more, look at your current bill).. not sure whether your monthly discount would carry over to the Simple Choice plan since T-mobile cancelled almost all new discount signups

 

[Red Storm]

All these family plans are for 4 lines, do they work for 5? Right now paying about ~$200 for 5 lines on T-Mobile, that's including the monthly hardware payments (5 of them). All but one of the lines is on the 1GB free data, while the other is on 3GB.

 

[lupi]

From what I read it's for 3-5, but you need 4 or 5 to get the data capacity bump.


As for discount, I've got a military one so believe that's one of the golden gooses that never goes away.

 

[isekii]

Do you have smartphones on all your lines ?

 

[lupi]

2 are, third a home line and thinking about getting a fourth.

 

[paperwastage]

From what I read it's for 3-5, but you need 4 or 5 to get the data capacity bump.


As for discount, I've got a military one so believe that's one of the golden gooses that never goes away.

then it'll be $100 for 4 lines @ 2.5GB each, plus taxes/fees minus discount... should come out to under $110

so, you'll be paying $10-20 more for one more line, losing unlimited but gaining 2.5GB on all lines

it depends how much you value your unlimited... if you don't see your data usage going up, then sure

 

[lupi]

Yeah looking at about a $10 bump. Right now I'm at $90 before taxes/fees and the discount is about the same amount. And since my main cell is limitied to 3g range in order to have a no-camera one to take into work not real worried about data overages there, plus could get a better one with the 4th line to use outside of work.

 

[openwheel]

wife just switched to T-Mobile and even though she only has 1gb. It seems as though she does not get throttled. She used roughly 3gb last month and she consistently got 6mb down even after crossing over the 1gb threshold. Very strange.

 

[cpacini]

Wow just saw this, this is a good deal. Fine print says the days drops back down to 1gb per line in January 2016, but by then I suspect that increased data will be the norm on every carriers plans so there will probably be something comparable at that point.

 

[lupi]

That is what most people think as far as the data bump end date.


For throttling, people that have tried to do r&d on it generally think it's a function of how much you use over a short time period and the network congestion in your area.

 

[paperwastage]

wife just switched to T-Mobile and even though she only has 1gb. It seems as though she does not get throttled. She used roughly 3gb last month and she consistently got 6mb down even after crossing over the 1gb threshold. Very strange.

certain speedtest apps (and music apps) do not get throttled by T-mobile

I'm on unlimited t-mobile, dont feel like I've been throttled (NYC region), use 10-20GB typically

 

[openwheel]

I knew T-Mobile does not throttle most music streaming apps. I didn't know T-Mobile does NOT throttle speedtest. That's interesting...

 

[isekii]

lupi, call retentions and get the bridge to value data plan added to your lines.

Do this
Dial 611, and say Cancel.
This will take you to retention and ask for the following.
Family Messaging for $9.99
BTV (Bridge to Value) for all lines. Basically $5 bucks for 5gb then throttled.you may need to call a few times depending on which rep you get.
When you get BTV you automatically get the discount to the add a line. So instead of it being 9.99 it's 4.99
And there is a $10 dollar discount to your base monthly so if it's 59.99 it becomes 49.99

 

[paperwastage]

I knew T-Mobile does not throttle most music streaming apps. I didn't know T-Mobile does NOT throttle speedtest. That's interesting...

I know Ookla Speedtest app is unthrottled, not sure about others

saw someone posted a rationale.. makes perfect business sense.

"gist": Speedtest websites/apps aggregate and report all values.

If a user is testing "throttled" data, this "throttled" speed would pull down the average and mess up the reporting

 

[Roland00Address]

A question, So do they have an option on their family plan to pay a little more to get more data on one of the lines such as.

Pay $10 to get 2 gb more of high speed data (4.5)? On one line
Pay $20 to get 4 gb more of high speed data (6.5)? On one line
Pay $30 to get unlimited high speed data? On one line

 

[Imported]

Wish it was 10GB shared for $100.

 

[paperwastage]

Not sure how much technical difficult in implementing this idea:

T-Mobile now has individual data bucket and each individual can upgrade to however much they want.

Have promotion codes that allow you to get more high speed data.

Eg: fill in survey, get one time 250MB high speed
Convince someone else to switch, get $50 and 6 month code of 250MB
This family promotion-> each family get 4 codes each month for 1.5G, can apply to any account or given away (everyone maintains the base 1GB data before promo code)
Attend T-Mobile livestream/events in person = free 1GB code

People can trade those promo codes away to other family members or on forums if they don't need it