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Most people are familiar with how carriers offer a variety of perks to their customers, especially video streaming services. These perks add a lot of value to plans, especially if they’re services you’d be paying for separately anyway.
T-Mobile has offered a number of perks over the years, and currently they offer Netflix Standard with Ads, Apple TV+ (for $3/mo), and Hulu (on the Beyond plan). Those offerings may be about to change quite drastically.
According to a tip submitted by an anonymous employee, new account-level SOC codes, which are internal identifiers for plans, add-ons, etc, have been added to T-Mobile’s systems. These new codes are all perks that, as of now, aren’t offered on their own.
Music Streaming
The new SOC codes (except for one) all end with OUA. Presumably, it can be inferred that this stands for “On Us Add-on”. There are eight new perk SOC codes that have been found.
The primary category for these new perks is, of course, streaming services. Most interesting though, is that for the first time, T-Mobile may be about to offer music streaming services that aren’t just a temporary trial like in the past.
Apple Music On Us, with SOC code APMOUA, is on the list. If it comes to fruition, it will be the first time T-Mobile has offered a music streaming service perk at the account level. Previously, the company has offered limited music trials via T-Mobile Tuesdays, such as Pandora, but never a full-time freebie.
Next up is YouTube On Us, SOC code YTBOUA. It isn’t the first thing you think of when you think music streaming service, but a YouTube premium perk would presumably include both ad-free YouTube videos as well as YouTube Music. That’s a pretty sweet deal.
Then there’s SiriusXM On Us. It’s SOC is SXMOUA, and is also not the first thing you’d imagine when you think music streaming, but it does indeed offer music as well as talk radio. It probably won’t be most people’s first choice for a free perk, but it’s nice to have the option.
Video Streaming
You can’t have carrier perks without free streaming services. As mentioned, T-Mobile already offers Netflix On Us and Apple TV+ for $3 per month, and now there will be a few more options for video streaming.
Paramount Plus On Us is the first, with SOC PAPOUA. It’s not clear if this will be the Essentials plan with ads or the Premium plan without, but either way, it’s the first of two new video streaming perks.
The second is ESPN+ On Us. This is the one perk with a different naming pattern to the SOC, with code C26ESDIS. That formatting follows the same pattern as the newer 2.0 and migration plans, weirdly. Internal documentation says this is an ESPN+ perk, with ES being ESPN and DIS being discount. It’s odd to only include ESPN here, instead of an entire Disney+ package including Hulu and ESPN on top, but framed as a “sports lovers package” might be popular.
Other Perks
The remaining perks are a bit different.
There’s XBOX Game Pass On Us, with SOC XBXOUA. It’s unclear if it’ll be the Essential, Premium, or Ultimate plan, but it’ll offer a large library of games every month to download and play. There’s also included cloud gaming, but XBOX made the news recently when they decided to limit the playtime to just 5 hours on Essential, 10 hours on Premium, and 15 hours on Ultimate.
Next is Google AI On Us, with SOC GAPOUA. It’s not clear at all which plan this would be, but it might come with the increased cloud storage many of Google’s plans come with, in which case it might be a decent deal.
Finally there’s DashPass On Us, with SOC DSHOUA. DashPass gives free delivery and reduced fees on DoorDash. T-Mobile currently offers DashPass for free once a year via T-Mobile Tuesdays, so it’s possible this will be the new method to claim that.
Pick-A-Perk replacing DashPass?
The working theory here is that these new “On Us” perks will replace the yearly DashPass T-Mobile already offers. Since DashPass is one of the perks, this makes sense.
Presumably, soon, you’ll be able to pick which one of the eight perks you’ll want to have on your plan, perhaps even once a year via T-Mobile Tuesdays. If so, and if T-Mobile does it right by giving it to everyone on a postpaid plan, that would be a huge win.
Of course, it’s very possible T-Mobile limits this perk to just the newer Experience plans, or the high-end plans only (Go5G Next, Experience Beyond, etc). Hopefully this isn’t the case, because I personally think this could be one of the better moves T-Mobile has made in quite a while if they nail it.
Are these perks of interest to you? Which one has your eye the most? Let us know below!
