T-Mobile Unveils Unlimited 4G Plans, Undercuts Sprint on Price

T-Mobile just took a bold new step to differentiate itself from the major mobile competition: on September 5th, the company will start offering a new Unlimited Nationwide 4G Data plan, which is blissfully free of data caps or bandwidth throttling. Wait, isn’t that Sprint’s claim to claim? It sure is, but T-Mobile is taking the bull by the horns by offering the all-you-can-eat data for much less than its competitor.

T-Mobile customers will be able to add the Unlimited Nationwide 4G Data plan to their Classic plan subscriptions for $30 per month, or to a smartphone subsidy-less Value plan for $20 per month. Your plan must include both talk and text in order to be eligible for the 4G firehose, however.

Digging into the Classic subscription plans, that means you can snag 500 voice minutes and unlimited data and texting for $79.99 monthly., or unlimited everything for $89.99. Similar plans from Sprint cost $79.99 per month for 450 minutes of talk or $109 for unlimited talk, text and data.

That’s a full $20 per month difference between T-Mobile and Sprint’s top-tier unlimited offerings, and the prices drop even further if you opt for a T-Mobile Value plan. Verizon and AT&T no longer offer unlimited data plans.

There are a few catches, however. T-Mobile’s new Unlimited Nationwide 4G Data plans don’t allow mobile hotspot usage; if you tether other devices to your phone’s cellular broadband connection, you’ll have to opt for one of T-Mobile’s traditional (read: throttled once you’ve reached a specified amount of data usage) data plans.

Also, T-Mobile is the only major carrier without the iPhone or any LTE capabilities whatsoever, though the company plans to expand into LTE next year and its existing HSPA+ network performed very well in our Nationwide 4G Showdown.

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