T-Mobile announces $99.99 unlimited plan just in time to yell "Fifth!"
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Feb 19th 2008 4:13PM
posted Feb 19th 2008 4:13PM
Clearly not wanting to seem unhip in this fast-paced, modern era of all-you-can-eat cellphone plans, T-Mobile has announced that it will begin offering a -- wait for it -- $99.99 unlimited calling and text message plan starting February 21st. Now the magenta team can join the ranks of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and, er... Helio, in giving customers almost exactly the same plan, though unlike AT&T and Verizon, this includes all the text messages you could possibly type. For those with happy fingers and a whole slew of friends, that might be the deciding factor in this war of nearly-identical calling deals. Can unlimited Faves be far away?[Thanks, Pete]
I'm taking away the opportunity for someone to comment "first" here.
second
turd
As in "Ferguson?" That's a funny name.
Please stop calling me Chuck!
it's like "first!" but way more pretentious and annoying. way to go!
Removing the opportunity by taking it is just a psuedoclassy way to do the same thing. By do the same thing I mean make an ass of yourself.
hmm, i shoulda been more specific with my "second" comment; i was telling the top poster to shove it. guess it was too oblique =)
Sounds cool. Does this price include the data also? I'm assuming not as it wasn't explicitly detailed. Anybody know?
If it's unlimited, why do you need myFaves?
no kidding...I would be funny to see someone using the fav five thing with an unlimited plan.
The MyFav has become a status symbol, like the number you are on speed-dial in that one episode of "Seinfeld." What I'm not good enough for you to spend $10 more to show off I'm one of your favorite people? Why F you man!
So where's Alltel?
Fifth!
"One two three fo' FIF!"
-Tron from Chappelle's Show.
According your avatar, you're not Fifth, you're Top.
lol. you americans are something special. we have this in austria since years and it costs only 25 euro/mth. i have no idea how you can be so patient wile you are getting riped off by all those crazy companys from there. i use tmobile in austria and i pay 9 euro per month and i have free in tmobile network + land lines.and i don't pay when somoane is calling me ;). you should start a revolution to ask for your rights to make a mobile-party!
yes I'm sure you do, because the ROAMING area in Austria is smaller than the size of Pennsylvania...but while you are feeling special being in Austria let me remind you that I can get a plan like yours that is unlimited voice and texting and limits roaming to a specific area (such as you with Austria) for about $30. $30 < 25 Euros. Have a nice day.
25 euros is like $450 now! You lose!
Oh, and I meant to add:
G'Day Mate!
G'Day Mate? You're thinking Australia, not Austria...
WRONG AUST Eric!
Austria - Mozart, Freud, and last but not least the Governator (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
Australia - Aboriginals, British Colony, and last but not least the crocodile hunter (Steve Irwin).
So to recap... Ich Habe Einen Deutschen Hute... or I Have a German Hat!
That's a lovely accent you have there... New Jersey?
or Eric could be making bad jokes...
eric must be a product of public schools, lol
Dude....tell me...
How much do gaming consoles cost in Europe again?
Yeah, I was just joking. Seemed a fitting response to the smug Austrian's remarks ;)
Reading that reminded me a bunch of Cricket, unlimited sure, but the phones are crap, and roaming is pretty much everywhere
@Eric: "Samsonite! I was way off."
Ah! I understand. Choosing cell phone providers is like voting for Hitler! Thank you, o brilliant engadget commenters, for making it so clear to me!
OSnix*-geek @ Feb 19th 2008 4:43PM
WRONG AUST Eric!
Austria - Mozart, Freud, and last but not least the Governator (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
Australia - Aboriginals, British Colony, and last but not least the crocodile hunter (Steve Irwin).
And don't forget most importantly Hitler :p
Russia is the same way.. I was genuinely impressed with the choices that mobile carriers over there offer their customers, all for much cheaper than what we see in the US (and you can't use €25 = $450 excuse here). Aside from unlimited texts and data plans, free incoming and nights/weekends, they also offer free roaming on other networks across the CIS space and relatively cheap roaming anywhere else in the world. As of now, the competition between Vympelkom (Beeline trademark), MTS, and MegaFon is so fierce that the rates have dropped dramatically over the past year or so. For the short time that I was there, my signal did not drop below 4/5 bars, even going across Russia by train. Now compare that with US GSM coverage and the all-too-frequent "Network Busy" messages in densely populated areas. No wonder that the Russian cell operators report such large earnings.. the sheer size of their customer base is astounding, to say the least; this is something that will take US cellphone companies years to catch up to.. provided they realize what they are losing. I have faith in T-Mobile, as it is an international company.. the problem is that people are willing to put up with the high rates and pseudo-unlimited plans offered by current cellphone market competitors in the US.. In addition, Europe has no monopoly on the GSM band (as we all know, AT&T and T-Mobile are the only companies that offer GSM network-based plans) and the bands are not as tightly regulated by an agency, such as the FCC.
I can't believe how many people seem to have no knowledge of Dumb and Dumber! Eric's "G'Day Mate" comment is getting such a raw deal. Though I'm now wondering, is there something wrong with me for even caring?
... don't answer that.
When is someone going to do a REAL unlimited plan and cut the crap? Unlimited should include unlimited voice, text, AND data. Paying for ringtones and downloaded games is fine, but just to have incoming and outgoing data, be it text, internet, or someone talking, should REALLY be what unlimited is all about.
Sprint has unlimited voice, text and data for 120. Too bad their service is crap.
Ya, and include all regulatory fees, and taxes.
I just want to see $99.99 on my bill. nothing else.
Helio offers unlimited voice and data over 3G for $99.
"Paying for ringtones and downloaded games is fine."
Paying for ring tones was NEVER fine. This is something you can do yourself with a Google search and about 5 minutes of your time. Try developing your own game in 5 minutes and you'll see why one is worth paying for and one isn't.
Not to mention you can buy a REAL SONG for 99 cents but a ring tone is $2? WTF?
"1,2,3,4,FIFTH!!!!"
about time they bring such plans... the US is lagging behind when it comes to mobile plans.. i guess this is the only country where incoming calls and messages are charged! gud to kno there's change in the air...
The US is not the only country where you pay for incoming calls. Canada for one is also. And just FYI if you haven't figured it out in caller pays countries people calling you are out and out gouged to call you and pay up to ten times as much to call your mobile number as they would to call either a domestic or even an international call.
I am officially pledging to switch to the first company to offer a $98 unlimited plan.
sound like "7 minute abs" from "there's something about Marry"
I sure would hate to be you if Tracfone or Net10 (same company anyway) started doing that...
I'm with you. Except I want unlimited everything for $100, and then add a line for unlimited voice for 20 more, or something. I need an unlimited (voice at least)Family plan under 150 dollah.
I have been a T-mo customer for 5 years now and I must say, even though they do not offer 3G yet and sometimes not the greatest phones, they do know what plans to offer to get the right audience. T-Mo rocks!!
have to admit that fav five was a great idea.
Tmo will most likely counter with an "up to 10" my favs (for a buck more?). I am suprised they didnt go for the $89 dolla plan for unlimited voice and texting.
Now that all 5 are at a stalemate, whos the first to go deeper and hit $85?
In my mind, helio is the winner here - they offer $99 a month for unlimited EVERYTHING. That cannot be beat. Not even by their mother, Sprint.
I guess everybody forgot about the $39.99 from MetroPCS that is unlimited calling. I dont use them, but it would be nice for a site like engadget to get the facts right. Tmobile would be six.
MetroPCS is only a regional carrier.
MetroPC isn't a national carrier. And for the record if you've ever USED or called someone with the service you wouldn't compare it to the likes of these 5 services.
It's like having a DSL line and not being able to play online games because you keep getting disconnected. Calling people with MetroPC is frustrating at best.
Man, I need a cheaper plan with fewer minutes. I use 100, at most 200 minutes a month while paying for 450 with rollover from att. my current number of rollover minutes is 3,679. I understand the need for a high number of minutes if you're using your phone for work, whenever I do my usage sky rockets, but for the rest of you people, what are you doing on the phone so much. In my mind the phone is something you use when you want to get in touch with someone to see them in person. I call someone up, talk for like a minute or two to arrange plans, and then SEE THEM. Same thing goes for text messages with me as well. I don't know how many I use but I'm way under the limit of my plan. Most of my minutes are used to call my parents who live 3000 miles away from me, but other then that its just a quick 2 minute phone call to make plans.
I just think people should stop using their phones so much to communicate and actually get out there and see the people they would be talking to on the phone anyway.
oh right, because it's just that easy to go meet up with someone at any time day or night to talk about something... sorry, I'm not a college kid living on campus anymore, the real world doesn't work that way.
minutes are cheaper than gas, and faster than my car.
jason, you fail in a big antisocial way.
My parents and girlfriend live 7,000 miles away. And that is way I love T-mobile: myFaves is great when using an access number for international calls so that I only need to pay 1.2 cent/minute. I use less than 200 minutes of anytime minutes per month but thousands of minutes on myFaves to call my family.
Who are you to dicttate how people should use their phones and how much they should spend on it? Get over yourself.
Bowser,
if you only use so few minutes then maybe it's time to ditch at&t and go with a prepaid plan. T-Mobile offers one where for $100 you get 1000 minutes. The minutes are good for one year. If you run out - all you do is just recharge. I honestly think this would be a better option for you.
wow, we have like 2-3 years with unlimited
plans here in Puerto Rico, the range from
$40 to $50 a month and they include unlimited
text messages and some even include unlimited
minutes to United States.
Well..prepare to say good bye to it...I'm assuming you are on SunCom...which was just purchased by T-Mobile.
Why would you need unlimited Faves if you can call and text unlimited...isn't everyone in your "faves" at that point since all the faves does is allow for unlimited calling to those people?
MetroPCS*
What a waste for the average user? That's like going to the all you can eat buffet everyday.... for what?? It's nice that you have everything, but you are not being efficient if you don't eat a lot.
I pay $39.99/mo on T-mobile for 1000 anytime and nights and wknds. The last 6 months I averaged less than 400mins/mo. Clearly, I have no reason to double my bill for unlimited service that I'm not using.
Some of the analysts have predicted that the only thing will happen is a bunch of downgrades from people paying over $100/mo for service, not a mass upgrade of customrs to these new plans.
Let's see what happens. No real need to switch carrier if everyone is offering such similar plans.
I have the same deal on T-Mobile with the $19.99 unlimited data plan, but text messages are al la cart. This package is completely unlimited for $40 more than I pay now... I think I'll stick with $0.15 texts and more voice and data than I can use for $59.98
Between this and HotSpot @ Home, how could you not love T-Mobile? From the looks of it, they seem to be the least evil of the bunch. Finally, a cellular telecom that treats its customers right (I'm looking at you, AT&T).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the other plans don't include text messages, do they? So T-Mobile's plan is slightly better than the rest. Competition FTW!
Yeah, T-Mo also fired the first shot in the feature/price war that is going to come out of this. Good job, T-Mo :-)
Over in the AT&T thread, when I asked to take bets on when T-Mo would join the club.... I'm glad I didn't actually place a bet. I would have said end of the week, not later today.
i just want to point out they have had unlimited plans for a while. they are used as save tools when you call to cancel your service. and yes they were $99.99
I don't care about this, what i want is 3G and on the 2100 freq.(I have a xda flame)
well you may as well use it as a paper weight as WCDMA 2100 is not going to happen in the US. What you'll start seeing after T-Mobile finaly flips the WCDMA switch is quad band GSM/Quad band WCDMA phones
Why in the world do people text, when email is infinitely cheaper? Your cell phones can do email now people! This isn't 1999.
It's called SPEED... Text messages do not ride on the network in the same way as e-mails do...SMS' utilize unused part of the voice channel. E-mail uses IP connection. It's basically a different setup so if you'd want to use e-mail on the voice pipe it would make your voice sound like shit (you can experience it if you have access to VoIP telephone service...try talking and downloading a large file at the same time..this will give you the idea.
The thing about this is, unlimited plans aren't that useful until everyone has unlimited plans. Think about what the internet was like before it went unlimited. What's the use of having unlimited texts when you can only use a finite number, since the people you are texting probably DON'T have unlimited texts, and therefore are more careful about usage. Ditto for voice.
why would you need "unlimited faves" when you already have unlimited minutes? honestly.
Sprint's doesn't actually exist yet. Sprint's is only in select "test" cities.
...and i'm sure they'll be the last to the party once their plan rolls out nation wide.
Did everyone get the "Highest ranked" comment, vote for me!
I had to rank you down for asking to be high ranked, you know the rules!
for those calling cricket wireless crappy phones.. any verizon phone can be used on cricket
Haaa,,
I'm paying $35 a month for unlimited text and talk.
Only a moron would pay $100 a month for service.
My German T-Mobile plan is way cooler... I pay 25€ for a plan called "Max Friends" that is unlimited calls and SMS to any German landline and T-Mobile handy. Only thing I pay for are calls and SMS to non T-Mobile handys (O2, Vodafone). http://www.t-mobile.de/tarife/0,10821,17773-_842,00.html
It is pretty cheap when you convert $ into £ :-) but they will never introduce such plan in UK.
Even with unlimited data, $100 is too costly. If they drop the cost to around $70, then they might have something. But you have to be making an incredible amount of phone calls to justify that cost from month to month, especially when paying $100.