T-Mobile the great un-carrier is aggressively promoting new family plan with the headline "Finally, a Family Plan that includes everything. Except for a credit check."
For $100 a month you get 4 lines of service and unlimited talk, text and web with up to 500MB of high-speed data per line. Verizon and AT&T plans can cost as much as $100 a line depending on the plan.
Called, T-Mobile's Simple Choice Plan for families, it is available to all families without an annual contract and without credit check and no overages. T-Mobile says in its latest ad "It's just another way T-Mobile is changing the game in wireless."
T-Mobile traditionally has offered savings for family plans. T-Mobile notes that with 500MB of data you can, view 20 web pages a day and send/receive 100 emails a day.
The way it works is that line 1 is $50 month, line 2 is $30 a month, line 3 is $10 month and line 4 is $10 month. For a family of three you can get a similar deal for $90 a month. Included in the plan is international data roaming. When you or your family member exceeds the allotment 500MB of high-speed data, the data speed is slowed until the next billing cycle.
T-Mobile recently announced free data for tablets purchased from the company. With T-Mobile you will pay full price for the device or you can pay for it over a two-year period, with credit approval.
Many use devices such as the unlocked Nexus 5 with T-Mobile SIMs. We have not taken out the spreadsheet on this one, yet, however, it appears that if you already have your devices it is a great deal.
Apparently, T-Mobile also has web and Walmart only deal for 100 minutes and 5GB of data a month. This plan is only available for devices purchased from Wal-Mart or devices activated on T-Mobile.com. Some people have used data calling apps such as Talkatone or GroovVeiP and Google Voice to compensate for the limited number of minutes.
A good rule of thumb when buying a plan is to see if it fits your needs. Heavy data users, may find other plans better suited to their needs. For a family with lots of calling and minimal data usage the $100 month plan is a great deal.