T-Mobile Plugs Home Internet With $50 Price Lock-In
T-Mobile amped up the sales pressure for its $50-per-month home internet service today with a package of promotions the company calls "Internet Freedom" but which really look like a way to remind folks that the new ISP is out there.
The carrier's new promotion, available today, includes a 15-day, no-commitment "test drive" to see if it works for you; $500 in early termination fees for another ISP; a fixed $50/month price for the life of your plan; a lower $30/month price if you're a Magenta Max plan holder; and a $50 streaming stick from Amazon, Google, or Roku.
The service is truly unlimited, says T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert. Most customers use 300GB to 400GB per month with 10% using more than 1TB; that's in line with Comcast's median usage of 355GB per month.
The all-inclusive, non "ballooning" price is a big selling point for T-Mobile's home internet system. Most cable and fiber plans hike their prices after the first two years, or at least maintain the liberty to do so. "You aren't locked in for one or two years, you're locked in for as long as you're a customer on this plan," according to Sievert, who says the service is now available to 40 million US homes, or about a third of the population.
"Our nationwide average [speed] is 140Mbps," Sievert says. "When you look at the top 75% of our customers, it matches cable at 165Mbps. It's a competitive service that's already resulting in Net Promoter scores 3 times higher than the cable companies."
When we tested T-Mobile Home Internet last year, we found that it's a great value but extremely dependent on T-Mobile's coverage and capacity. That's the tricky bit. While wired ISP service is binary—you have it or you don't—whether or not you're eligible for T-Mobile Home is
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