T-Mobile announced their new Go5G Next plan on August 21st. It’s a new addition to the Go5G line of plans that allows customers to upgrade their phones yearly and only pay half the installment. It’s not a terrible deal for those that like upgrading their phones all the time, but there’s a pretty big catch if you want to take advantage of a popular service discount: free lines.
Go5G Next in a nutshell
The new Go5G Next plan is pretty much exactly the same as T-Mobile’s Go5G Plus plan. You get the same unlimited premium data, the same 50GB of high-speed hotspot, and the same trade-in values for new phone promos.
The only difference is that the new Next plan allows customers to pay off just half of their installment plan on a new phone and then trade it in. The remainder of the installment is forgiven by T-Mobile, and the customer gets full credit for the trade-in device towards a new phone promotion.
For example, let’s say you buy a $1,000 phone on 2-year installment on the Go5G Next plan. That works out to about $41.67 per month. After just one year, though, once you’ve paid just $500 of that installment, you can trade it in towards a new phone. T-Mobile will forgive the other $500 you owe, and give you the maximum value for that device (which can be quite high for some promotions).
Not so “free” lines
There’s a big catch to this new plan, though.
According to internal documents shared with us here at The Mobile Report, the new Go5G Next plan will charge $10 per “free” line on the account. This means customers switching to the new plan from an older one that have free lines will see a much higher increase in price than you might expect.
It’s not 100% clear why the lines are no longer actually free. It could be that “free” lines actually have a maximum credit allowed for the promotion. The new Next plan is so expensive that individual line cost is higher than that theoretical maximum credit.
That’s merely a guess though. It could also be that T-Mobile is looking to start undoing all those free lines from the past few years, and since they can’t change the rules of people’s existing plans without significant backlash (and violating their Price Lock Guarantee), the best way to do that is by introducing a new plan.
The $10 charge is even in effect for T-Mobile’s not-so-limited-time “third line on us” offer. For the new Next plan, going from 2 lines to 3 lines increases the price by $10, as shown in an excerpt from T-Mobile’s newsroom announcement. All of T-Mobile’s other plans that are eligible for third free stay the same price.
Lines that have a “50% off” service promo will remain 50% off, but they will be 50% off of the new line price. The prices of every line on a standard Go5G Next plan are shown below. Note that these prices do not include the third line free/discounted promo.
The new plan will work with T-Mobile’s famous Insider discount, so that’s a positive.
Discounted and business rate plans for Go5G Next
The images shared with us also show that there are discounted versions of the new Next plan as well.
Just like with T-Mobile’s standard Go5G plans, the Next plan will offer discounted rates for certain groups, like First Responders, 55+, and Military.
There’s also business equivalents of the Go5G Next plan, too, which have their own discounted rates.
All the plan variations for Go5G Next are shown below. Note that DHH is “Deaf/Hard of Hearing” and is more of an informative label than a separate rate.
It’s not yet fully clear what the pricing for these discounted rate plans will be, but it’s likely to be a similar percentage to what the discounted Go5G Plus plans offer.
Other details
It’s worth noting that customers switching from an existing plan to the new Go5G Next plan cannot enroll their existing phone into the one-year-upgrade program. A new EIP (installment) must be started on a new device purchase. You won’t have to immediately buy a phone when switching, but you won’t be able to take advantage of the one-year benefit until you do.
When on the new Go5G Next plan, you can upgrade your device as soon as just 6 months after purchase, though you will still have to pay half of the device’s EIP before being allowed to trade it in.
The new plan also includes the offer of T-Mobile Home Internet for an additional $30 per month, just like Go5G Plus.
Overall, it’s an interesting idea for a plan, and clearly a response to other carriers similar offerings. Will it be worth it in the long run, especially if “free” lines are no longer free? That remains to be seen. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, and sign up for the new Go5G Next plan, if interested, when it becomes available on August 24th.
