T-Mobile Confirms Price Increases For Legacy Customers

Earlier this morning, we broke the news that T-Mobile will be forcing customers on older plans to migrate to newer, more expensive, plans. We now have official confirmation of these changes.

In what could be called a catastrophic end to “Member Month”, T-Mobile will be force migrating customers on Simple Choice, ONE, and Magenta plans to one of a few new “Experience” plans specifically designed for these legacy customers. Plans older than Simple Choice are likely impacted as well.

Go5G plans do not seem to be impacted. It appears the plan is that, moving forward, there will only be plans named Experience and Go5G.

All Experience all the time

From what we can tell, every customer that is being force migrated will land on one of many newly implemented plans. They’re all “Experience” plans.

First up are Experience Select plans. There are three variants of this plan (called A, B, and C) and each one has a different per-line cost. If I had to guess, I’d say that this plan is going to be for customers on older Simple Choice plans, or maybe even the older Select Choice plans. Oddly, even though these plans are marked as getting unlimited data, there are several separate “Data SOCs” listed for these plans. It’s unclear what those are for right now.

Then there are the “main three” new plans, the first of which is called “Experience Signature“. This plan is the “lowest tier” of the new plans, and comes in two flavors: Taxes Included, and Taxes Excluded. The plan features are essentially the same you’d get on Experience More, but without Apple TV and without the phone upgrade promos, apparently.

There’s also “Experience Value Signature” and “Experience Signature Family” which seem to be the same in terms of perks as Signature. These also include segmented variants, such as 55+, Military, and First Responder versions.

Then there’s Experience More (TI) and Experience Beyond (TI). These are the same as the regular More/Beyond in terms of benefits, but with the additional benefit of having taxes and fees included.

Which plan you get migrated to will vary depending on your current plan. Text messages began going out to customers around 9am local time. If you have not yet received a text, you’ll likely get one sometime later today if you’re on an affected plan.

But hey, at least you get a 5-year Price Guarantee! (Ugh)

Pre-planned entrapment?

It’s worth noting that, recently, some phone promos were strangely available for older plans.

Back in November, T-Mobile offered the Pixel 10 for free with trade-in of a number of older devices. The promo was available to pretty much every plan on the books that was able to finance devices. Then in February of this year, they offered the Pixel 10 for free with any trade-in to many customers.

The company has also regularly offered “free” 5G phones with any trade, of course with those credits applying over 24 months.

Was it an intentional ploy to trap customers into 2-year commitments? We’d never make such an accusation. But it does make you wonder, and it does mean that customers with EIPs are going to have to suck it up and accept these plan price increases if they want to get the remainder of their credits.

Email to employees from Jon Freier

This morning, employees across the country received the below email from COO Jon Freier.

As you can see, Freier tries to spin this decision as a benefit to customers. “Not everyone has had access to our full experience” is simply an excuse to raise prices. If customers actually wanted these modern “benefits”, they’d switch plans themselves. Not everyone needs international roaming data or tons of hotspot data or more “premium” (read: unthrottled) data.

Freier goes on to say that “nearly half” of impacted customers won’t see a price increase. I question that claim, because based on what I’ve seen, the only customers likely to not see a price increase are those on the limited-time Price Lock from April of 2022 to January of 2024, as well as maybe customers on the original Un-Contract from 2016 and earlier.

Loss of KickBack

A big loss that’s being under-reported elsewhere is the elimination of the KickBack discount. This per-line discount credited the customer’s bill by $10 if the line stayed under 2GB of data that month.

That adds up to a significant savings for many people on the older ONE plans, including myself. Given the price increases and the loss of KickBack, my plan may increase by as much as $80. Other customers are likely in similar situations.

T-Mobile statement

T-Mobile reached out with the following statement:

We’re retiring our oldest plans, some of which were built nearly 15 years ago – in the 3G and 4G eras, and well before our 5G network was fully deployed. Customers will transition to modern plans that provide access to America’s best wireless technology, enhanced features and a 5-year price guarantee for peace of mind. Some customers will see no change to their monthly bill, while some will see a modest adjustment. Every customer moved to a new plan will keep their current benefits while gaining improvements in network and service experiences.

– T-Mobile

Other notes

There is a page on T-Mobile’s website that details plan changes for affected customers. So far, it’s working for some but not others. You can visit that page here (you’ll need to login). It will not show details for everyone just yet.

It is also worth noting that tablets, wearables, and some home internet lines will also be facing a price increase. Tablets and wearables can see an increase of $3 per month, while some home internet lines could see an increase of $6 per month.

Otherwise, keep an eye out for a text message from T-Mobile sometime today to find out what your new plan will include.