T-Mobile launches price promise T-Mobile reckons it can beat any competitor's tariff, and is promising more minutes for your money even if you're in the middle of your contract, though as ever the devil is in the detail. The deal applies to Solo, T-Mobile's SIM-only offering, and Combi, which comes with an 18-month contract, but only for customers paying 30 …
Having swapped to T-Mobile from another operator on an apparently good deal, things are never quite what they seem. Although I have more minutes available, the previous operator's voicemail calls were free and I previously had an apparently-derisory amount of bundled data traffic (enough to synch up the phone's calendar and contacts a couple of times a month).
The net result is that my bills are now higher every month because T-Mobile charges for calls to voicemail, charges for all data and appears to exclude more calls from your "allowance". And has just upped the cost of calling 0870 numbers, of course. Those apparently-small individual charges add up over a month.
Caveat emptor....
T-Mobile states that they can beat any other operator for tariff prices but what they fail to mention is that if your call lasts less than a minute then you get charged for the whole minute at your allocated price. i.e. 20ppm.
They also fail to mention that anywhere in the literature that the shops shove down your throat as soon as you walk through the door.
They hid this little discrepancy rather well in the website. PITY THE RIP-OFF MERCHANTS DON'T TELL YOU THIS.
RUN AWAY WHILE YOU CAN
I'm quite a fan of the "flext" idea for a price plan - worked well for me, and saved me having to pay attention to quite what I'm using. I certainly send too many texts, too many MMS and use too much data to pick a tariff on inclusive minutes. I'd have made the odd video call if they were in the bundle too...
BUT - I hate with a passion any price match deals - they're a message to competitors that says "if you undercut us, we'll match you, so don't bother, just match us and we won't need to budge, and we can both shaft joe consumer on fatter margins". The OFT should outlaw them in favour of price beater deals.
mind you, with the price of 08x numbers having shot up, data being available on an unpredictable basis (and hence no mms or browsing or video calls) maybe T-mobile are going back to being a voice only operator?
If they do loads of minutes, they'll hoover up lots of low spending technophobes who wonder why a phone needs to do anything other than make a call.
Virgin offer a measly 1000 mins/1000 texts for £30 but offer free voicemail access which is one of the reasons I changed last weekend to Virgin - after all unless you actually use those 1400 mins its just not worthwhile. BTW Virgin's cheaper tarrifs match Solo for voice minutes - Virgin also don't bill whole minute usage for just dialling the number!
Before trying to tempt people into T-Mobile by changing their price plans, how about they start by trying to cover the entire UK land mass? 99% POPULATION coverage is useless; I need my mobile phone in EMPTY PLACES, as well as population centres! T-Mobile's coverage is pitiful compared to other operators; so your minutes might as well be on the moon...
You haven't met my daughter!!
I think T mobile are wonderful.
I have just renewed my contract (£9.99 pm, 20 mins free (I don't use that much)) and as I did not have a new phone they have given me a discount of £10 pm. So they are going to pay me 1p per month to use their network. Funny old world ain't it?
Not so around here... they're the best for coverage in these parts, followed by vodafone and O2 (roughly equal), and Orange just isn't worth trying - you'll never have signal unless you're 100ft in the air!
Which of course means 3 doesn't have coverage now that they've switched to orange as a fall back carrier.
Of course, just because Orange are crap around here doesn't mean that they're crap everywhere - I happen to know that they provide the best coverage in west cornwall.
But then of course, Orange also have an extremely congested network, so even if you manage to get signal, there's no way you'll be able to actually USE your phone!
I'm coming to the end of my T-mob contract, but because you can get a better deal as a new customer than a renewal, but can't transfer your number from one t-mob contract to another, I'm signing up with virgin, who are a mvno on the t-mob network!
Reg: It's actually available on a 12 month contract also. Plus the guarantee covers physical networks, 3, O2, Orange and Vodafone, but not the virtual networks.
Jon Press: You're pissed because you don't get something for free that was never offered to you and you? And also because you didn't bother to look into T&C's prior to committing? Sounds like you're one of the many idiots out there who have nobody to blame but them selves.
Nik Wyatt: Stop crying dude, again, you agreed to your contract. Show me another network that shows all of the above in their advertising? It isn't good to be bitter, it'll do you no good.
Robin Weston: You couldn't be further from the truth. Do you really think that the 4th largest network is going to launch the most aggressive pricing structure on the market and spend £10,000,000 on advertising to remain in 4th place? T-Mobile want the other networks to better the deal - and they will go on to beat it. They have invested heavily in making sure they can keep their promises... How long did Orange's "we'll match any deal" last? They want your custom and they want you to have the best deal - and they won't turn around and tell you that you can't have it once your contract has ended.
Anonymous Coward 1: [Excised by Reg moderator].
Tom Kelsall: Yeah, makes sense. Invest in infrastructure where there are no people, apart from you of course!!11!11eleven
Anonymous Coward 2: T-Mobile will match most new deals for 95% of customers, the remaining 5% being mostly ultra low users. Give upgrades a call.
I came over a little too strong there, sorry guys. *Takes chill pill* *Takes typo cure pill*
The moral of the story is just, networks are not an evil empire. I read a lot of whining in forums about people who don't like a part of their contract - at the end of the day it's a contract... A binding agreement you entered into at your own free will. I'm not talking about bad service - that's not acceptable. But not being happy with a term you have agreed to is hardly cause for canceling your contract without penalty. You may not like the wording used in a contract, but at the end of the day you agreed to it. If you don't like the small print in any contract, you can't have one, simple as that.
Not everything out there in the marketplace is a sinister ploy... There is such a thing as good value.
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