US Mobile unveiled some new phone plans today. The T-Mobile and Verizon MVNO has unified its offerings. Previously pricing and plans differed depending on which network you subscribed to. Unlimited LTE data was not even an option for the T-Mobile network based plans, but is now available with the new plans.
New US Mobile Plans Explained
Custom Built Plans
US Mobile's new custom build plans should benefit most of its customers with lower pricing or more cellular service for less. A fraction of customers may see a price increase.
Here is what the new plan options are.
New Custom Build Your Own Plan Options Are Available On Both The T-Mobile And Verizon Networks
Under the new custom build plan options, customers will pay the same price for their service allotments no matter which network they choose to subscribe to. Taxes and fees are not included in the prices shown and cost extra. Mobile hotspot is available on both networks and is only limited by the amount of high speed data that the plan has.
Below you'll see what the plan options were previously.
Old Custom Build Your Own Plan Options Using The Verizon Network
Old Custom Build Your Own Plan Options Using The T-Mobile Network
US Mobile Updated Unlimited LTE Data Plan Options
There have also been quite a few changes made to the unlimited data plan options.
Under the old US Mobile plan structure, subscribers could only get unlimited data on the Verizon network. Subscribers also had the ability to choose their own speed. They could pay more for uncapped data speeds or save money with slower data speeds. Here is what those old plans looked like.
Old Unlimited Data Plans
Pricing for data With speeds Limited To 1 Mbps
- $35/month - 100 minutes, 100 texts, unlimited data
- $42/month - unlimited talk and text
- $47/month - unlimited talk, text and mobile hotspot
Pricing for data With speeds Limited To 5 Mbps
- $45/month - 100 minutes, 100 texts, unlimited data
- $52/month - unlimited talk and text
- $57/month - unlimited talk, text and mobile hotspot
Pricing for data With No Speed caps
- $65/month - 100 minutes, 100 texts, unlimited data
- $70/month - unlimited talk and text
- $75/month - unlimited talk, text and mobile hotspot
With each speed allotment, customers were subjected to data prioritization. On the 1 Mbps plans, subscribers who used more than 12 GB of data in a month had their speeds temporarily slowed down during times of heavy network congestion. On the 5 Mbps plan, data prioritization was applied after 14 GB of data was consumed, and on the no speed cap plan, it was after 16 GB.
New Unlimited Data Plans
US Mobile's new unlimited data plans all come with unlimited talk, text and data. Subscribers can still choose their own speeds. Besides offering unlimited high speed data options, there are now plans with a limited amount of high speed data and they too are available at different speeds. The new plans are priced as follows.
Pricing for data With speeds Limited To 1 Mbps
- $25/month - 5 GB data
- $35/month - 10 GB data
- $40/month - unlimited data
Pricing for data With speeds Limited To 5 Mbps
- $30/month - 5 GB data
- $40/month - 10 GB data
- $45/month - unlimited data
Pricing for data With no speed caps
- $40/month - 5 GB data
- $50/month - 10 GB data
- $55/month - unlimited data
Mobile hotspot is available on all plans for an additional $10/month. No word at press time what the data prioritization policy is for the new plans, but I'll update the article when I find out. Taxes and fees cost extra and are not included in the prices shown.
Editor's Take
US Mobile has really made a lot of changes. The new unlimited plans compete favorably in the market and may be a real bargain for some. This is particularly true if you don't mind a speed cap. The $30/month plan with 5GB of data at 5 Mbps is the cheapest plan on the market to offer that much data on the Verizon network.
In addition to the phone plan changes, US Mobile has also announce a referral program that lets you give a $25 activation credit, and gives you $25 off your next bill for each friend who joins US Mobile.