T-Mobile USA Launches Effort to Attract 'Bring Your Own iPhone' Customers

Monday September 10, 2012 12:07 pm PDT by Eric Slivka
While T-Mobile USA is preparing to refresh its employee training on "selling against the iPhone" later this month as Apple rolls out the iPhone 5, the carrier is also seeking to embrace those who already own an unlocked iPhone. T-Mobile today announced a new "Bring Your Own iPhone" initiative including demo iPhone units in its stores, new apps, and enhanced staff training to help iPhone owners get up and running on the only one of the four major U.S. carriers to not officially offer the iPhone for sale.
We see a big opportunity to make the experience of bringing an unlocked iPhone to T-Mobile even better for customers.

That’s why, beginning September 12th, we’re stepping up our efforts to attract customers with unlocked iPhones to T-Mobile. Each of our branded retail stores will receive an iPhone 4s demo unit and our sales staff will start training to help customers set up their compatible iPhone. We’re also developing iOS versions of helpful T-Mobile applications like T-Mobile myAccount, T-Mobile Visual Voicemail and T-Mobile TV (we already offer an iOS version of our popular Bobsled application).

iPhone users on T-Mobile USA have long been limited to the carrier's slower 2G network due to incompatibilities between the iPhone and T-Mobile's 3G network, but the carrier has been working hard to refarm its spectrum to bring advanced 4G HSPA+ speeds to the iPhone and other devices. With that refarmed spectrum showing up in more and more markets, T-Mobile is touting the increased speed iPhone users will see on this network compared to AT&T.
In fact, we’re already starting to turn up 4G HSPA+ service in our 1900 MHz spectrum. With sites already live in cities like Seattle, Las Vegas, Washington DC and the New York metro area, don’t be surprised to hear reports of iPhone “speed sightings.” We expect to have these improvements deployed in a large number of markets later this year.

Our internal tests of unlocked iPhone 4S devices running over 4G (HSPA+) on our 1900 network recorded on average 70% faster download speeds than iPhone 4S devices on AT&T’s network.
T-Mobile is also touting significant savings for customers bringing their devices over from AT&T, noting that its $69.99/month Unlimited Talk, Text and Data plan is $50 cheaper than a plan from AT&T offering unlimited talk and text and 5 GB of data.

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Pared
97 months ago
Sorry, but you guys screaming desperation just don't get it.

I'm happy TMo is doing this. Why? COMPETITION. The more pressure they put on other carriers to lower their rates the better we are off as consumers.
Rating: 45 Votes
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milan03
97 months ago
Respect to T-Mobile as they're doing everything possible to align with AT&T's frequencies, and stay competitive. They've had such a limited amount of spectrum to work with, but they've deployed ALL of their licences (unlike AT&T that's squatting on tons of spectrum), and their HSPA+ outperforms AT&T's here in NYC by order of magnitude! Also, next year their LTE will align with AT&T's band 4 AWS, so the iPhone will be LTE compatible with T-Mobile out of the box.

And btw, T-Mobile HSPA+ on PCS is actually on in parts of NYC:

Rating: 15 Votes
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GoreVidal
97 months ago

Alright, you just look desperate now, T.


Jesus Garth...seriously? The ONLY carrier still offering legit unlimited is "desperate"? I think they got balls and they're likely getting my business for it.
Rating: 11 Votes
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kevinkt
97 months ago
Desperation or not. If its good it good!!
Rating: 11 Votes
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OriginalMacRat
97 months ago

T-Mobile is also touting significant savings for customers bringing their devices over from AT&T, noting that its $69.99/month Unlimited Talk, Text and Data plan is $50 cheaper than a plan from AT&T offering unlimited talk and text and 5 GB of data.


Their even better plan is the 100min/5GB for $30/mo.
Rating: 10 Votes
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GBrooks
97 months ago
Alright, you just look desperate now, T.
Rating: 10 Votes
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Mal
97 months ago
This is great. They are attracting AT&T customers without even having to sell them a new handset (meaning they reap more of the profit immediately instead of paying the subsidy to the handset manufacturer first).

I've been a T-Mobile customer for 10+ years, and never been dissatisfied with their service (occasionally with the coverage, but it's been vastly improved over the last ~5 years). I currently have a crap Samsung phone, but as soon as I can reasonably afford to get an iPhone I'm going to, and I'll be just about the last in my family to do so (ironic, since I'm the Apple tech in the family, although my little brother works for Apple directly). Most of my family is also on T-Mobile and uses iPhones, and since they picked up officially unlocked ones instead of jailbroken ones, I haven't received hardly any calls asking for help. The iPhone on T-Mobile is the best setup, except for the lack of a subsidy since they don't sell it directly.

jW
Rating: 8 Votes
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kvizzel
97 months ago

So T-Mo will not unlock the phones for you???
(Let alone for free)

Glad I got away from T-Mo!


How would T-Mobile unlock your phones for you? That makes no sense...

Good thing you are staying away from T-Mo.
Rating: 7 Votes
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Cingular
97 months ago
Some of you guys don't get it. Why would you sign a 2 year contract with T-Mobile when you are bringing your own unlocked iphone? T-Mobile prepaid is where I see the best plans.
Rating: 6 Votes
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Rizzm
97 months ago

oh good! I will bring this up when I call att to convince them I will cancel unless they give me a upgrade I will use this as compelling information.


It's too bad that consumers feel so entitled that they do something like this. You signed a contract. What a shame it'd be if you had to honor that.
Rating: 6 Votes

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