T-Mobile launches $40 plan, promises no data overages

BELLEVUE, Wash., April 9 (UPI) -- T-mobile is attempting to reel in value customers by offering a $40 Simple Starter plan with unlimited text and talk and half a GB of 4G LTE data.

The new plan set to kick in April 12 and is a part of the company's "un-carrier movement." Under the new plan T-Mobile will not charge customers an overage fee every time they exceed their 500 MB allocation. Customers will be able purchase a day or week pass, or upgrade to one of T-Mobile's Simple Choice plans.

T-mobile has trained its sights on value customers and over the past year has eliminated annual service contracts, offered to pay for termination fees and offered value-for-money mobile plans, which has prompted its competitors to respond.

"Un-carrier is a movement, not a marketing strategy," CEO John Legere said in a statement. "We are freeing consumers from the predatory practices of traditional U.S. wireless companies and that includes these plans that start with a low price and a low data limit, but then hit you with insane fees if you send one too many emails."

Today's announcement comes weeks after AT&T announced similar plans, as well as similar plans by U.S. Cellular and Sprint. T-mobile has said its plans will provide "a ton more data" as compared to AT&T's plan.

In a separate blog post, Legere shows that he isn't shy of taking on his competitors. He launches into an attack on other service providers, saying that "the big, fat, old-guard carriers stumble as they try to respond and slow the change we are driving into this industry."

He goes on to call companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint "merciless greedy utilities," and says that the slew of offerings these companies have announced are short-lived programs that are "painfully lame knock-offs of Un-carrier innovations."

T-Mobile is expected to make announcements for new products and services developed based on customer feedback over the next two days.

[T-Mobile Blog] [PC Mag]