On Wednesday, T-Mobile literally “upgraded upgrades” when they announced Jump! Basically Jump! allows you to upgrade your phone twice a year at new customer pricing. So say you buy the Galaxy S4 today for $99 down and $20 per month. Then the Galaxy Note 3 comes out in September or October. If you are enrolled in Jump! you can trade in your Galaxy S4 and get the Galaxy Note 3 at the new customer pricing (probably around $149-199) and all your monthly payments for the Galaxy S4 that are remaining are voided. Sounds pretty good right? So basically you’d pay ($99 +3 months of $20)$159 for the Galaxy S4, then you get a brand new phone within 3 months. Who wouldn’t love this plan?
The question is, is the Jump! program a good deal? Will it take off? I believe that it will take off, but it’ll mostly take off for those of us that are always wanting the next big thing. Think about it like this, you pay $8-12 per month for insurance on your phone already. So for $10 per month you can upgrade twice a year and you get full insurance on your phone. Sounds like a no brainer right?
There have been plenty of arguments against T-Mobile’s new Jump! program. But you can’t really argue that T-Mobile’s new upgrade policy isn’t better than Verizon, AT&T or Sprint’s. Verizon and AT&T make you wait a full 24 months. If you want to keep your unlimited data on Verizon, you’ll be paying full price anyways, so the 24 months won’t matter. Sprint is around 18 months for upgrades.
I’m a big T-Mobile fan, not just because I’m a T-Mobile customer, but because I’m loving what they are doing with their network and in the wireless space right now. They are really revolutionizing the mobile area which is something we are in desperate need of. I think their new Jump! program is definitely something that will take off, as long as T-Mobile explains it well. Just like with their getting rid of contracts earlier this year.