While we work on a complete and total breakdown of the new T-Mobile Even More/Even More Plus rate plans, Fierce Wireless has put out a cheat sheet. Breaking down the offerings of the big 4, and showing the advantage of T-Mobile plans versus the competition, the breakdown will hopefully put out a few of the fires I’ve been reading in your comments. Conspicuously leaving out MetroPCS, Boost Mobile and other regional carriers who might otherwise offer competitive plans, T-Mobile remains focused on battling the national carriers who represent the greater competitive environment.
Judging by your emails and comments, there remains a great deal of misunderstanding and miscommunication stemming from the unveiling of these rate plans. Five days out of the gate, we understand there are still some kinks to be worked out. While some may find their current rates more valuable than new offers, the majority of customers–customers of larger, beefier competitors–may not. Comparatively priced, those on other networks can easily find the T-Mobile plans offering more for less. T-Mobile will continue to focus on maintaining and growing their value, with aim toward the higher arpu customer typically residing in the Verizon/AT&T camp. In the opinion of this author, T-Mobile should be ramping up its own marketing campaign against AT&T appealing to disgruntled iPhone owners. Touting a superior 3G network, especially in the metro areas where the predominant AT&T issues take place, T-Mobile is missing a valuable opportunity. Verizon is taking to AT&T and their woes; T-Mobile should be prepared to fight dirty as well. Nobody ever won a war by playing nice. The wireless industry is a constant war, T-Mobile needs to be prepared to win.
As you may already be aware (its only been on the blog a few hundred times) T-Mobile officially launched its newest rate plans as of Sunday, October 25th 2009. T-Mobile announced a new approach to truly show itself as the cheapest carrier compared to AT&T and Verizon. Yesterday during the “So You Think You Can Dance” show, T-Mobile aired its newest T-Mobile ad to explain the Even More Rate plans. And I have to say I’m impressed with T-Mobile. I believe the ad was a very effective way to introduce and educate people with the new plans that aren’t exposed to forums like TmoNews. Enjoy the video above and feel free to express your thoughts in the comments. If you watched the ad yesterday, do you think it was effective? Why or why not?
Sat at the keyboard all morning wondering how best to word this article. We’ve been talking about Project Dark for almost a full two weeks, and after all speculation, hype, and confusion and questions still remain. We have concluded however, that we really don’t what kind of impact these plans will have. We’ve been a little rough on the magenta lately, yet let there be no question we want the Even More and Even More Plus plans to succeed. Not only because we are fans, but because we are customers as well. Basic economics says competition is a good thing and hopefully will continue to drive down prices. I think we can all agree they are already higher industry-wide than we would like. T-Mobile took a big gamble on the Even More/Even More Plus plans and we won’t know if it paid off for some time. We did learn, however, that first day numbers weren’t shabby as word has it that T-Mobile did 14k activations this past Sunday alone. What remains is if they can keep that number constant, or exceed it.
With my rambling above in mind, MocoNews has an article up this morning discussing how T-Mobile could have started a price war, but didn’t. They quote Verizon as saying they didn’t see a “need to respond to them” in reference to T-Mobile’s new pricing. MocoNews points out that T-Mobile needs to shift focus on keeping its high dollar customers.
I’ve tried to keep up with your comments and I know some of you who originally thought the worst, fared a little better in the end. Some of you saved money, a few of you saved a lot of money and some of you see no reason to change plans at all. So what say you on this MocoNews article?
Many people are saying project Dark didn’t quite take the wireless world by storm like we had all hoped, speculated or hyped. That being said, T-Mobile did introduce some “game-changing” features by moving away from the typical wireless practices the big 4 continue to deliver. How the industry receives these practices is a question that may not be answered for some time. Until then, we at Tmonews want to ask your first impressions of these plans. We’ve read your comments and we know they are mixed with disgust, angst, happiness, frustration and a desire to sing a song. So vote in our poll and sound off below, how do you feel about Even More and Even More Plus? Yay, nay?
