Self-coined “un-carrier” T-Mobile is making it easier for customers to switch the competition — specifically Verizon. Its newest campaign, Get Out of the Red, lets eligible subscribers migrate from Verizon, keep their phone, and avoid having to pay a hefty fee (ETF) for terminating their contract.
“Switching is a pain! It’s expensive to pay off their phone and a huge hassle to trade it in and transfer their life — contacts, apps, photos and more — to a new device,” said T-Mobile. “And it’s all unnecessary. The truth is, the latest iPhones and Pixel phones work great on T-Mobile now.”
Starting May 31, Verizon customers with an iPhone 6s or newer (or one of Google’s Pixel-branded phones) can switch to T-Mobile by visiting any of the carrier’s brick-and-mortar stores. T-Mobile said it’s aimed at the 14 million Verizon customers who say they would switch carriers if they could keep their phone and didn’t have to pay a fee.
But the carrier’s not leaving Sprint and AT&T customers out in the cold — for a limited time, its waiving early-termination fees and device payments. And to celebrate the campaign’s launch, T-Mobile’s offering customers with two or more lines two additional lines for the price of one.
Get Out of the Red launches on the heels of T-Mobile’s un-carrier moves. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the carrier replaced its capped data plans with the T-Mobile One plan, which starts at $70 and includes unlimited talk, text, and 4G LTE data. As part of the One plan’s rollout, T-Mobile introduced the “One-plan guarantee,” which locked in prices for new customers, and KickBack, a new plan benefit that refunds subscribers for data they don’t use.
And in December, T-Mobile announced Digits, a new service that provides a single phone number that works across smartphones, tablets, computers, and even wearables. Subscribers can answer and place calls from any device, and access call history, messages, and voicemail from the online Digits dashboard.
“The Internet wasn’t meant to be metered in bits and bytes,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere said in January. “[It] was mean to be unlimited, and at T-Mobile, we believe that everyone should have unlimited mobile internet.”
T-Mobile’s next frontier is 5G. In May, the carrier said it will deploy next-generation high-speed networks across the U.S. “[It’ll] position T-Mobile to deliver a 5G network that offers both breadth and depth nationwide,” T-Mobile chief technology officer Neville Ray said in a blog post. “We’re going to run at it and run hard.”
