T-Mobile Announces New Stateside International Talk Plans
T-Mobile US, Inc. (TMUS) – the fourth largest national telecom carrier in the U.S. – has restructured its Stateside International Talk plan to offer unlimited international calling at relatively flat rates.
The first plan, at $5 per month, will allow all Simple Choice customers to call from the U.S. to international landlines in more than 70 countries, including Mexico, Canada, most of Europe, and parts of Latin America and Asia. The second plan, which costs $10 per month, will offer unlimited calls from the U.S. to mobile phones in over 30 countries plus 1,000 minutes to mobile phones in Mexico and unlimited calls to landlines.
The major advantage of these plans is that they apply to T-Mobile accounts and not individual phone lines. This implies that up to 10 lines on the same account can benefit from the unlimited calling plans, for a single $5 or $10 monthly fee.
Moreover, these options are available to customers with Simple Choice plans until the end of the year and they can further carry on with the plans in 2015 and beyond. Not only this, starting from Friday, T-Mobile will start giving away Alcatel One Touch Android tablets to its existing customers for free as long as they sign up for a qualifying data plan. However, new customers can take advantage of the tablet deal from Nov 22 only.
As a matter of fact, all major carriers across the world offer some kind of international calling plan. However, these plans tend to be of the pay-to-save types or country-specific plans like the one that AT&T, Inc. (T) has – its $5.99 monthly Call Canada plan. Interestingly, last year T-Mobile became the first major U.S. carrier to break the strong hold on international roaming by beginning to offer free SMS and 2G data to customers who ventured outside U.S. borders. It has retained its trend this time as well with its competitive international voice plans. Notably, till now, the foreign national markets have been targeted by mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) like America Movil’s TracFone and Ultra Mobile only.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile is also one of the major bidders in the ongoing Advanced Wireless Services-3 (AWS-3) spectrum auction conducted by the Federal Communications Commission (:FCC). The auction was initiated on Nov 13, 2014 and has received as many as 70 applications. Other bidders include Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), DISH Network Corp. (DISH) and AT&T.
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