Every year, the Federal Communications Commission releases a report on the state of competition within the United States of America. 2016 will be the nineteenth “Report on the State of Mobile Wireless Competition” and T-Mobile US has filed a public letter explaining its position on the competitive state of the US cell ‘phone market. It should come as no surprise to regular readers that T-Mobile US has taken this opportunity to detail how its own “Uncarrier” stance has upset the apple cart. And indeed, it’s only been three years since T-Mobile US publicly took the established rule book of cell phone companies doing business and ripped it up with the introduction of equipment installation plans. These equipment installation plans offer consumers a much more transparent way of seeing how much of their regular monthly bill goes towards paying for their cellular service and how much goes towards the cost of the hardware. Today, only Sprint offers the old style, two year contract. The other three national carriers have switched to equipment installation (or similar) plans.
T-Mobile have launched a number of other Uncarrier initiatives and in its filing, which you can read at the source link below, explains how the other carriers – especially AT&T and Verizon Wireless – have adopted similar schemes themselves. As such, T-Mobile US’ actions have benefited the whole cellular telephone industry. These initiatives include offering to pay some or all of any early termination fee a customer may experience when switching to the T-Mobile US service, which is something else that the major US carriers have also adopted. T-Mobile have introduced other services such as unlimited, unmetered music and video streaming for compatible video services.
By way of one example, T-Mobile pointed a finger at Verizon Wireless and explained how last week, Verizon’s introduction of rolling over unused data into the next month and the ability to throttle data should the customer reach their limit are duplicates of similar services that have been available on the T-Mobile US plans for a long time. It wouldn’t be T-Mobile US if they also didn’t highlight how Verizon have increased their prices and data allowances (and Verizon separately justified by explaining that the cost per unit of data has been reduced). At the bottom of T-Mobile US’ report, the company states that the current cell phone market has tough competition but that “…the ability and willingness of a maverick like T-Mobile to compete effectively has resulted in tangible consumer benefits across the wireless industry.” In other words, T-Mobile US’ aggressive Uncarrier moves have been beneficial for all customers in the industry. T-Mobile has certainly performed strongly, as it is now the third largest national carrier in the US having overtaken Sprint last year and their outspoken Chief Executive Officer has regular Twitter battles with the other carriers.