On Wednesday, T-Mobile teased a new Uncarrier move happening today, and it turns out that announcement was to give first responders free service.
T-Mobile will offer free service for first responders for 10 years.
First responders aren’t getting a watered-down plan either. They get unlimited talk, text and 4G/5G data. So it is mostly the same plan that everyone else is paying $70/month for.
There are a few caveats with this move by T-Mobile
Firstly, it is only available to eligible first responder groups, and their agencies will need to contact T-Mobile to get approved first.
The plan is a bit more limited than the Magenta plan. Mostly, the fact that tethering is limited to 1GB of LTE. There’s also no mention of free data and texting while abroad. There’s also no Netflix or free in-flight WiFi. It basically gives first responders the basics. Which is the ability to use their phone when they are responding to disasters, without worrying about whether they have enough data to do so.
The plan is called the “Connecting Heroes plan” and it’s part of T-Mobile’s promised goodwill initiatives.
T-Mobile promised this to the FCC to get its Sprint merger approved
This is another thing that T-Mobile promised to the FCC and Department of justice when it was attempting to get its merger approved. So this isn’t just something that T-Mobile decided to bring out, during a global pandemic, when everyone is looking to pay tribute to these first responders.
It’s the second promise that T-Mobile made to regulators, that it has followed through on. The other one was the $15 5G plan that it announced a little over a month ago. That one actually launched early because of the global pandemic and many people being out of jobs right now. $15 per month sounds a lot better than $70 per month. Especially with most of us staying home more.
Of course, in his little speech today, new T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert took some shots at AT&T and WarnerMedia. Following in his predecessor’s footsteps. Mostly taking shots at them raising prices after their merger was approved, even though AT&T promised it would not – it raised prices the day after it was approved.
T-Mobile is still planning to follow through on its other pledges that it made to get its merger with Sprint approved. However, the general public does not yet know what those pledges are. But we know one is that T-Mobile won’t raise prices for a few years.