T-Mobile Tries To Attract Subscribers With Unlimited Data Plan, But Will It Work?

As an attempt to increase its subscriber base, T-Mobile is offering unlimited data plan after it slid off the cellphone menu. T-Mobile, the nation's fourth largest cellphone company said Wednesday that it will start selling unlimited data plan from Sept. 5, after suspending sales last year.

The move by T-Mobile follows the No.5 carrier MetroPCS that slashed the price of its unlimited data plan as a promotion for a limited period of time, AP reported.

The nation's third largest carrier Sprint Nextel Corp also has an unlimited data plan, which hooks subscribers for its smartphones.

Kevin McLaughlin, vice president - marketing, T-Mobile, said the carrier is launching the plan as it is what the customers want. Apparently, McLaughlin averred the company can keep the network fast and dependable even with unlimited data users.

T-Mobile's unlimited plan will cost $30 a month when bundled with regular calling and texting plan and $20 when added to a cheaper plan offered to customers who bring their own phones. Under T-Mobile's new unlimited plan, data will be streamed at maximum speed.

T-Mobile's new plan will cost $5 less than the regular data plan with 5 gigabytes full-speed data. Under the Unlimited plan subscribers will not be able to convert their mobile into hotspots and link their tablets and computers to the Internet.

"The bottom line is they have capacity available to attract quite an influx of subscribers without pulling down the network," Steven Crowley, an independent network engineering consultant told AP.

T-Mobile USA is a unit of the German phone company Deutsche Telekom AG and has 33.2 million subscribers.

A similar plan will cost about $110 on Sprint. Under the shared-data plans from AT&T and Verizon Wireless, unlimited talk and text with 4 gigabytes of data will cost about $110 for a single user, The Wall Street Journal reported.