T-Mobile Walks Back Forced Plan Migration, Won't Make People Switch Plans After All (cnet.com) 25
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: T-Mobile caused a bit of a stir earlier this month when a leak revealed it planned to move people from older, cheaper plans to pricier ones starting with their November bill cycle. On Wednesday, the carrier officially walked back the changes with CEO Mike Sievert confirming that they would not happen. "We tend to do tests and pilots of things quite a bit to try to figure out what's the right answer," Sievert said on a company earnings call, in response to a question about industry pricing and how it could raise its average revenues per user, a key industry metric. "In this case, we had a test sell to try to understand customer interest in, and acceptance of, migrating off old legacy rate plans to something that's higher value, for them and for us."
Sievert noted that the company was doing training around this test and said it wasn't planned to be a "broad, national thing." In its statement confirming the leak, the company told CNET earlier this month that the notices it was sending out was going to "a small number" of its users, but the carrier never clarified what a "small number" actually meant and didn't respond to that question when asked. At the time, the carrier said that the switch would generally see customers pay "an increase of approximately $10 per line" per month.
With the "plenty of feedback" the company received following the leak, Sievert said that T-Mobile has learned that this "particular test sell isn't something that our customers are going to love." He mentioned that no migrations of plans have actually rolled out. As for what will happen going forward, the carrier will continue to do tests and pilots for different changes, Mike Katz, T-Mobile's president of marketing, strategy and products, said on the call.
Sievert noted that the company was doing training around this test and said it wasn't planned to be a "broad, national thing." In its statement confirming the leak, the company told CNET earlier this month that the notices it was sending out was going to "a small number" of its users, but the carrier never clarified what a "small number" actually meant and didn't respond to that question when asked. At the time, the carrier said that the switch would generally see customers pay "an increase of approximately $10 per line" per month.
With the "plenty of feedback" the company received following the leak, Sievert said that T-Mobile has learned that this "particular test sell isn't something that our customers are going to love." He mentioned that no migrations of plans have actually rolled out. As for what will happen going forward, the carrier will continue to do tests and pilots for different changes, Mike Katz, T-Mobile's president of marketing, strategy and products, said on the call.
Lucky for those folks (Score:3)
T-mobile cancelled my $10 a month data plan because I swapped my sim into a non smartphone for a day due to battery issue.
Change not requested and the would only switch me to the higher price plan to get data back.
Re: (Score:3)
That's common. Had the original A&T unlimited data plan from the original iPhone for years. Great plan but didn't include tethering. First time ya did it they gave you a pass but that second time you violated they kicked ya to a newer plan. Gotta follow those service terms.
Re: (Score:2)
How could they even tell? Isn't it all just packet data from the network's point of view? If the phone tells the network whether it's an app on the phone as opposed to using the phone as a wireless modem for a PC, that's a privacy violation already.
Re: (Score:2)
IMEI
Re: (Score:2)
The IMEI is hard-coded for the mobile terminal (i.e. the phone). That won't change if you're using it as a packet data router.
Re: Lucky for those folks (Score:2)
Yes, that's how your phone can be tracked.
Re: (Score:2)
Which doesn't answer the question I asked, which was how can they tell the difference between data used for apps on the phone and data used for "tethering" (i.e. using the phone as a router for some other device). The conversation is about carriers charging people more when they detect them "tethering".
Talk about IMEIs is irrelevant anyway because they track the subscriber by SIM.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, I was confused.
You are right. They shouldn't be able to tell unless they are doing some deep packet analysis and I'm not even sure how that would work.
Re: Lucky for those folks (Score:2)
Commonly tethering is detected by a different ttl, as the connected device will have an extra hop on the way to the carrier router. Some software can be had to alter this count which may evade detection.
Re: (Score:2)
They can certainly tell. There was a 3rd party app that formed a network differently and appeared to just be normal phone traffic but that's gone now.
Re: (Score:2)
Chances are they got threatened with a class action if they did it.
If you were on a contract, moving you to a more expensive plan could be a violation of that contract, but they know even over the course of 2 years, a $10/month increase in your bill is only $240. It's pretty much under the limit of how much you can reclaim - once you go through filing a claim (in small claims court) and take your day off work, it would've cost you more than that much money. (Basically it's not worth going to small claims fo
it wasn't planned to be a "broad, national thing" (Score:2)
Yet.
I call bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Last month I changed my plan with T-Mobile, At the time she said I was doing this at a good time because the plan I'd been on was being phased out and the comparable plan would be another $30/mo. This wasn't a pilot or trial, they were switching everybody and not announcing it broadly.
Re: (Score:3)
Ummm, what was the question???
For me the question is how do I get the best value for my usage profile? I'm on a 20yr T-Mobile legacy pre-paid plan. No data but at the rate I use talk and text, $100 lasts a LONG time.
Re: (Score:1)
Something along the lines of "I wasn't really going to do it" is what ALL the bad actors say when they are caught red-handed.
Merger (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe if Americans weren't so stupidly accepting of the Sprint and T-Mobile merger we wouldn't have T-Mobile raising prices and trying to force people off legacy plans. Just utterly idiotic. What a surprise 3 competitors means higher prices and worse deals vs 4 competitors.
Re:Merger (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd wager the vast majority of Americans are actually pro-competition. It's just our elected representatives who think it's a great idea to let businesses gobble each other up, because guess who's paying for their campaigns?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't recall voting on the Sprint/T-Mobile merger as well as all the airline mergers that were touted to bringing lower prices and more competition.
I can't think any time merging 2 mega companies was better for the consumer.
"Value"? (Score:2)
And, pray tell, would be the higher value for "them"?
"In this case, we had a test sell to try to understand customer interest in, and acceptance of, migrating off old legacy rate plans to something that's higher value, for them and for us."
I'd be not surprised if that was not only omitted from the summary...
"Test sell" (Score:2)
Boardroom discussion (Score:3)
CEO: We need to raise revenue
Consultant (Flipping through PowerPoint slides): Our analysis determined you can maximize revenue and get a synergistic increase in customer satisfaction by:
(Last slide reveals, with much animation):Raising Prices!!!
CEO: Brillant!!!
Rest of room: Of Course! What's not to like? Who wants a cheap old plan when you can ge a newer expensive one without even having to ask...
You have the right to cancel your contract (Score:2)
Whatever (Score:4, Interesting)
For giggles I spent some time last night looking over my financial records. I have been a T-mobile customer for over 20 years, and I currently have 7 lines with them (I have 6 kids). As you can probably imagine they are all on the Magenta plan. When I first read this article I became a bit concerned. I am very happy with my current plan, and there is nothing that I want from T-Mobile that is worth another $70/month.
A bit of research, however, turned up that I could almost certainly save money, even with my current plan, if I switched carriers. I am not under contract, and so I don't have to worry about paying off a bunch of devices if I leave. I could just port my phone numbers to another carrier and be done with T-Mobile today. There would be a bit of hassle, but I would save money every month. I am somewhat tempted to make the switch anyhow. T-mobile has been good to me, but everyone likes saving money.
A bit more research, and it appears that the biggest difference between the Magenta plans and the plans that they currently offer is that the Magenta plans don't involve financing a phone. I could probably save money at T-Mobile by simply switching to their Essentials plan. It has a lower data cap before you get throttled, but none of my lines come close to the current Essentials cap. I suspect that T-Mobile did the math and they realized that most of the people on their older plans were in a similar boat. We aren't using our phone bill to finance phones, and we are already paying for way more data than we currently use. If pushed most of us will choose a less expensive plan, not a more expensive plan.
In other words T-Mobile walked this back because they ran some tests and realize that they were going to lose money.