T-Mobile’s prepaid brand MetroPCS recently made some changes to its plan lineup. Effective immediately, MetroPCS has changed its $50 plan to include unlimited unthrottled data, although videos will be downgraded to 480p quality in order to preserve bandwidth. Unfortunately, with this change comes the removal of hotspotting and tethering.
There are no changes to any of the other plans, including the unlimited $60 plan which basically now serves as a $10 upgrade to allow users to use a hotspot and stream unthrottled HD video.
Here’s what the
plan lineup looks like:
- $30 – Unlimited talk and text, 1 GB high speed data, unlimited throttled data
- $40 – Unlimited talk and text, 3 GB high speed data, unlimited throttled data
- $50 – Unlimited talk, text, and high speed data, no hotspot, throttled video (formerly included 8 GB)
- $60 – Unlimited talk, text, and high speed data, 8 GB hotspot/high speed video (then unlimited throttled)
It should be noted that both the $50 and $60 plans have an addendum that customers who are in the top tier (using more than 28 GB per month) will be throttled during high usage times.
MetroPCS plans all include all taxes and fees, and all plans but the $30 plan include unlimited music streaming from select providers. Additionally, all plans include the Data Maximizer option, which downgrades videos to 480p in order to preserve data. It can be toggled on and off for all plans but the new $50 plan.
Changed so soon after Boost’s $100 unlimited family plan promotion and Verizon’s (postpaid) unlimited data option, this plan change can only be seen as a reaction. Price wars are pretty common in the telecom industry (both prepaid and postpaid) and it can only mean better prices and more service for consumers.
As far as value, I personally kind of feel like unlimited without throttling is kind of worthless. Most people don’t use all that much data to begin with, but the $50 price point for using as much data as you like without worrying is not too bad, although Boost already offers this to its customers. I don’t think most people would argue that T-Mobile’s network is a little better than Sprint’s, however, so that may not even matter. Cricket, by contrast, doesn’t actually even offer unlimited data, and neither does Verizon’s prepaid options.
For more information on services or to check out MetroPCS plans and phones, visit the
MetroPCS website.]]>
