After raising rates last June for customers on some of its older plans, T-Mobile is pushing up costs again — but it’s not entirely clear how many people are affected. According to a memo obtained by CNET and sent to T-Mobile employees early this morning, some people will see a $5 per-line increase beginning with their April or May bills.
The memo by Jon Freier, president of T-Mobile’s consumer group, states that customers affected by the price hike should be notified by the end of today, March 13. Only those who receive a notice will see the rate increase.
Freier cites the “rising costs over the past several years” as the impetus behind the price push. Other carriers are facing the same headwinds, such as Verizon last December and this January, and AT&T last January and June.
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It’s unclear which legacy plans are affected. People who subscribe to T-Mobile’s current lineup of plans — Go5G, Go5G Plus and Go5G Next — will not see this price change. The increase also does not apply to anyone with the company’s Price Lock guarantee or a promotional free line on their account; the memo refers to the number of those unaffected by the increase as in the “millions of customers.”
Even removing current and free plans from the calculation, the number of affected customers is unknown. Apparently last June’s increases were not applied to all legacy plans. Freier says in the memo that T-Mobile is completing the initiative begun last year.
Freier also says that “no line that received a prior increase will receive an additional adjustment as part of this initiative.” So if you saw a $5 increase on your older plan last year, this change will not be added on top of that.
The memo notes that some people “who had a price adjustment on products other than smartphones may have an adjustment on an older phone plan.” That would include someone who saw a $2 increase last year on a cellular watch plan, for example. This new price increase wouldn’t be added on top of that, but the $5 could be applied to another line on that account.
Even if the rate increase is applied, T-Mobile says all the existing benefits and rate plan types will remain the same.
In the past, people had the option to contact customer support and push back against T-Mobile’s attempt to move them onto newer, higher-priced plans, which ultimately led to the company walking back that strategy. But this increase, like the one last year, is automatically added to the affected accounts.
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