T-Mobile moving old, grandfathered plans over to its new 'Uncarrier' options

It's been a big 2013 for T-Mobile — the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the US has turned its back on its larger competitors and embraced a new role as the "uncarrier," eliminating contracts and subsidies, pushing unlimited data, and other things to differentiate itself. The key component of the "uncarrier" strategy reveal back in March was simplifying the wireless plans it offered customers and removing contracts, and now T-Mobile is starting to push its existing customer base over to its new plans. As noted by some Howard Forums posters, customers on older plans are receiving letters from T-Mobile saying that their old plans will be "retired" in November and their lines will be moved over to new plans that T-Mobile will continue to offer.

Engadget has confirmed T-Mobile will be making these changes — in a statement, the carrier said that "we're giving customers on these plans the opportunity to choose a plan that best meets their needs. For the vast majority, their plan will provide similar or better features at a comparable price." As with the other carriers, unlimited voice minutes will be the only option, but it looks like T-Mobile will continue to offer a less expensive option to customers who were on cheaper plans than its default $50 / month option. According to a letter posted on Howard Forums, at least one customer is being moved over to a "select value" $45 / month plan that offers unlimited voice, text, and "4G data." If accurate, that's a pretty good deal — customers on T-Mobile's base $50 plan only get 500MB of full-speed data every month before being throttled