T-Mobile Still Leading The Competition With Fellow Mobile Providers AT&T And Verizon

While T-Mobile is currently ranked as the number three mobile carrier in the United States, taking Sprints place, they have been making the type of aggressively competitive moves that have been making their competitors fall over themselves in an effort to keep up.

The little giant, T-Mobile has been using more consumer-friendly moves and became the trendsetter in the wireless industry. Early last year, they announced that they would pay off early termination fees for persons switching to rival companies and gave its customers rollover data plans. The giant that is AT&T quickly followed suit and even tried to one up the company by offering persons who were specifically switching from T-Mobile a $200 payout in addition to the standard $250 that switchers usually receive when they trade in their old devices. Going even further back to 2011, it was revealed the time that AT&T tried to buyout T-Mobile in an effort to get rid of the threat it was beginning to pose. The bid failed and T-Mobile continues to be a figurative thorn in the side of its bigger competitors as they have had to adapt or lose their own customers.

Over the past few years T-Mobile has gained around 2 million new subscribers as they reduced the cost of smartphone usage and the overall stress associated with constantly having to monitor your data usage so as to avoid those pesky extra fees. They have given unlimited data, unlimited calls from the U.S. to Canada and Mexico, with the additional benefit of having unlimited 2G data and text in about 120 countries outside the U.S.

T-Mobile’s 4 major data plans can be seen below.

Compared to AT&T plans information obtained from the International Business Times.

The fact is, subsidized phones are practically a thing of the past as AT&T and Verizon followed in T-Mobile’s footsteps and now offer phones with installment plans. This means no upfront costs, no unending monthly subsidy fee and after 18 months on the standard 24 month plan you get the option to upgrade — at no extra fee. Verizon introduced this system a whole two years after T-Mobile, and it just came into effect on August 13. They also now only charge one flat access fee of $20 to get a smartphone.

Last year, T-Mobile started the program of rolling over unused data for up to a year for its threshold plans and feeling the pressure, AT&T then added data rollover in January — even though they stop at just one lonely month. The bigger companies have also had to restructure their data plans they offer to try and match that of T-Mobile’s. AT&T has dropped the cost of its data plans and added voice calls to Canada and Mexico.

T-Mobile has reported that 2.3 million new customers have been added in the third quarter of the year and chalks it up to their competitive pricing. The competition amongst these mobile giants seems to be getting heavier and in the long run, can only continue to be a benefit to consumers.

[Photo Courtesy of ullstein bild/ Getty images]