T-Mobile Launching New International Plan With Free Unlimited Data and Text

T-Mobile is looking to aggressively shake-up the mobile market this month, as it just announced its new international phone usage plan, which involves free unlimited data and text message use internationally, alongside many traditional mobile phone features.

So, if you live out of a suitcase for work or just so happen to enjoy the frills of early retirement, traveling from country to country, you should give T-Mobile a few minutes of your time. You might just be convinced to switch to them, if you haven’t already.

“People are scared to death to use your phone around the world,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere told CNET in an interview regarding their new plan.

“We’re taking a big stab and we’re going to make the world your home network.”

T-Mobile plans to kick off its new international phone plan on October 31, which will eliminate fees for international data and text message use in over 100 countries, and will drop the calling rate from cell-to-cell to a fixed rate of 20 cents per minute (or less, depending on your region). Conventionally, you’ll also get free unlimited calls to landlines in 70 of the 100 aforementioned countries.

New and existing customers who are currently on a plan are eligible to adopt the Uncarrier 3.0 plan when it kicks off at the end of this month.

“It’s a no-brainer for businesses,” said Legere. He expects there to be a lot of inter-communicating corporations and businesses to flock to the program not only because it offers a great international option now, but because T-Mobile has traditionally been weak in that area of business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LInAyNmblqw

Using AT&T as an example, Legere points out that if a customer uses 72 megabytes of data on his trip, makes 32 one-minute calls back home, and sends 36 texts a day on AT&T without an international plan, the cost would average out to $1,150 if you’re from Canada. If you’re from Europe, you’d be paying upwards of$1,500.

With T-Mobile’s new international plan, you’ll only be paying $6.40.

That said, T-Mobile will likely suffer a pretty substantial monetary hit at first, when and if people begin moving to their plans.

T-Mobile says they can afford this substantial of a move because the international side of their business never really generated much notable revenue. Most customers have been more likely to go with Verizon or AT&T for their service, even though those respective plans aren’t considerably cheap for the average consumer.

As for the speed of the service, it’ll be serviceable at its free cost, but not very fast. Mike Sievert, CMO of T-Mobile, approximates that the average speed on the international plan for customers would be around 128 kilobits per second.

He was quick to mention that speeds of that nature aren’t fast enough to stream a video “well,” but it can certainly handle streaming music, reading and responding to emails, and social networking just fine. T-Mobile hopes to sell “speed packs” which can temporarily boost your connection speed if purchased. $15 will get you 24-hours of high-speed data up to 100 megabytes, while $20 will get you a week up to 200 megabytes, and $50 will get you two weeks up to 500 megabytes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuJPXdj7cDI

Legere pins this announcement as a “tipping point” for their Uncarrier plans, and hopes it’ll bring in customers who were wary of joining based on the perception that T-Mobile has poor nationwide and international coverage. But it sure seems now that T-Mobile is doing all it can to stand out as a non-traditional provider of phone service.

To learn more about T-Mobile’s new international plan, head here.