It was April Fools Day, and so I wasn’t paying attention to many announcements, because the days of companies trolling us all have ground my brain into the most negative state on April 1 each year, but T-Mobile had real news to share. Last week, T-Mobile announced big changes to the way it presents the details of its wireless (and broadband) plans through new “Broadband Facts.” It’s a very good change for consumers and I hope others, like AT&T and Verizon, have similar info to provide soon.
T-Mobile is providing these new facts because the FCC is asking broadband providers to provide a broadband label with simple and clear details about the plans they offer. Broadband includes both wireless and internet plans, so that should lead to our service providers giving us specifics on pricing, speeds, one-time charges, etc. Think of these labels like you do the nutritional labels found on food products that list out calories, sugar, protein, serving size, that sort of thing.
T-Mobile mentioned that all providers with more than 100,000 customers were supposed to create these labels by today, April 10, but we aren’t seeing others just yet. As we do, we’ll try to share them. But again, these are a big deal and very helpful for you and I as we shop for wireless plans.
If you head over to T-Mobile’s wireless plan page (here), you’ll look for a box under each plan that says “Broadband Facts.” You can see it in the screen shot below. Those sections have a dropdown arrow that expands the facts and lets you see all of the important details about a plan.
As you’ll see next, there is a breakdown of monthly pricing for accounts with lines from 1-5, as well as the per-line cost for lines 6-8 or 9-12. They also disclose if those prices require contracts or not, if they are introductory rates, and if they include discounts, like you might get with autopay.
From there, T-Mobile dives into fees, including one-time device connection charges, early termination fees, if there are taxes included, and whether or not the plan can take advantage of other discounts.
Where this gets interesting is in the “Speeds provided with plan” section. T-Mobile lays out the expected speeds you should see on network types (ex: 5G) with ranges for download and uploads, and latency. Their best plan, for example, sees typical download speeds between 89 – 418Mbps. Of course, your speeds could go much higher than that depending on the network type and your location proximity to a tower. We all know 5G networks can eclipse 1Gbps at times.
Finally, there is a section on how much data a plan includes, if it’s unlimited or not, and if you could be charged for using additional data.
You love to see it.
// T-Mobile
