Some reasons to consider giving up unlimited data on T-Mobile
Yes, you read that headline right. In an age where unlimited data plans are practically unheard of at the big two wireless carriers in the US (AT&T and Verizon), and when even the little guys seem to be pushing their customers towards tiered data plans (Sprint and T-Mobile), you would think that no one in his or her right mind would willingly give up unlimited high speed data – especially if the price is right.
I’m currently on T-Mobile’s grandfathered promotional “Simple Choice Unlimited 4G LTE Family Plan,” in which I pay $100 for two totally unlimited lines – unlimited talk, unlimited text, and unlimited high speed LTE data. At $50 per line, the price is definitely right. But lately I’ve been thinking about switching to T-Mobile’s promotional “10 Gigs for All” plan. For the same price ($100/month), I’d get two lines with 10GB of high speed data each.
Why in the hell would I do such a thing?
First, let’s talk about data. With my current plan, I do get unlimited high speed data on my phone, but I only use around 2-3GB per month in reality. I also get a tethering bucket of 7GB per month (this is standard for most T-Mobile unlimited plans). I travel a lot, and when I do, I average about 1GB per day of tethered data. So if I spend more than a week out of my billing cycle traveling, I can quickly hit my tethering allotment.
With the 10GB family plan, I get 10GB per month, all of which could be used for tethering, if I want. T-Mobile also provides Data Stash for this plan, which means I could theoretically accumulate up to 120GB of high speed data in my data stash. Since I travel a lot some months, and stay home a lot other months, I could quickly accumulate a pretty significant stash of data that I could use to tether when I’m away from home. I’d be much less likely to hit up against a tethering limit.
Speaking of traveling, let’s talk about roaming. When I’m in the United States, I can only use 50MB of roaming data before I’m cut off – it’s a hard limit. With the 10GB plan, I get 100MB of domestic data roaming; that’s twice as much.
Internationally, I’m restricted to 2GB speeds in Mexico and Canada, unless I pay $10/month to add the North America feature. With the 10GB plan, high speed Mexico and Canada data is included – and even data stash will be available in these countries in the not-too-distant future.
The 10GB plan also includes Music Freedom, which means I’d use even less data and accumulate more in my stash for when I’m traveling.
So yes. I might be crazy, but I’m seriously thinking about giving up my unlimited data to move to this plan. Would this move be right for everyone? Absolutely not. But it’s starting to seem right for me.
