The Keep & Switch promotion from T-Mobile has been around since 2020. The offer allows customers on competitor networks to switch their lines over to T-Mobile and be credited back the balance owed to their previous carrier for their device.
Now it’s expanding with the addition of two more carriers.
The Keep & Switch Promo
T-Mobile’s Keep & Switch promo is available to eligible carriers and allows customers tied up in a phone payment plan to ditch their old carrier and move to T-Mobile. Here’s how it works.
First, customers must make sure their phone is eligible for the promo. Pretty much any phone that would still be on a payment plan with a carrier is going to qualify here, so there’s not much to worry about. The only exception is some much newer (or expensive) phones, like the Galaxy Fold 6 or the iPhone 16e for example, are notably missing from the eligibility list.
After that, customers generate a copy of their planned final bill to submit to T-Mobile, and then ensure their device is unlocked (which can sometimes require paying off the device). Finally, the customer ports their numbers over to T-Mobile and submits the form for a rebate.
Currently, you can get up to $800 on a prepaid Mastercard for each line ported to T-Mobile to pay off your previous carrier’s bill, up to 8 lines.
Initially available for just Verizon and AT&T customers, the program has expanded the list of eligible carriers over the years to also include MVNOs, specifically Spectrum, Claro, Xfinity, Liberty, and UScellular. The company is clearly looking to attract even more customers, because now they’re adding two new MVNOs to the list.
According to multiple sources, T-Mobile is now going to offer the Keep & Switch program to customers on Cox and Carolina West Wireless.
Who are Cox and Carolina West Wireless?
You may or may not know the name Cox Communications. The company is a traditional ISP and cable TV provider operating in 19 states across the US. They’re the third-largest cable company in the country, and began offering nationwide cellular coverage back in 2023 using the Verizon network. Like Spectrum, Cox’s mobile service is only available to customers that also have Cox home internet service.
Carolina West Wireless, on the other hand, is an odd duck. Based in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, the company actually owns and operates towers on their own in a very limited area of the state. Founded in 1991 in a joint venture between three telecom companies, they expanded to a few other counties over the years in an effort to provide rural coverage where the big carriers didn’t. Currently, they are partnered with Verizon to offer roaming coverage in the vast majority of the country where their towers don’t reach.
Cox makes sense for T-Mobile to target, but a small town carrier like Carolina West is unusual. As of 2019, the company reportedly had only 90,000 customers, and most of them are likely in areas that haven’t traditionally been serviced by the big three.
Our guess is that T-Mobile is targeting Carolina West’s rural customers specifically now that coverage is more widely available. In fact, Carolina West’s hometown of Wilkesboro is blanketed in 5G according to T-Mobile’s coverage map. Combined with the addition of T-Satellite in partnership with Starlink, dead zones are much less of a problem in these areas nowadays.
The Keep & Switch program is available to customers on AT&T, Verizon, Spectrum, Claro, Liberty, Xfinity, UScellular, with Cox and Carolina West coming May 23rd, over on T-Mobile’s dedicated Keep & Switch website. If interested, you can head over there to find out more details.
