T-Mobile’s announcement of its next big thing for its customers will happen Nov. 10 in Los Angeles at its Un-carrier X event, and already the rumors are beginning about what the mobile carrier is preparing to unveil.
T-Mobile itself hasn’t given any hints or details about what is to come, but well-known news tipster Evan Blass, whose Twitter name is @evleaks, wrote in an Oct. 29 post on Twitter that T-Mobile is poised to announce a free, unlimited video streaming capability for customers, similar to what the carrier already began offering following its Music Freedom Un-carrier 6 event in June 2014.
“T-Mobile’s Uncarrier 10 to offer unlimited high-speed data for watching select streaming video services like Netflix, HBO, etc.,” Blass wrote in his tweet. Later, he followed the original post with a caveat: “Speaking with someone else, this seems to actually just allow unlimited video on 4G without making you churn through LTE data first,” he added.
Of course, none of this will be known for sure until T-Mobile delivers its news on Nov. 10, but when has that ever stopped rumors from starting and circulating?
In a reply to an email inquiry from eWEEK about the Un-carrier X rumors, Janice Kapner, T-Mobile senior vice president of corporate communications, wrote: “There are always rumors ahead of our Un-carrier events, and it’s part of the fun—we love it! We can’t wait to shake up the wireless industry, yet again, with Un-carrier X on November 10th—stay tuned!”
T-Mobile likes to call itself the Un-carrier because it says it does the things that traditional carriers won’t try. In the last few years, T-Mobile’s Un-carrier events have ended mobile contracts for consumers, removed overage charges and brought more innovations for customers.
In May 2015, T-Mobile unveiled its Un-carrier 9 benefits, which were new mobile services targeted directly at small and midsize businesses to bring them into T-Mobile’s ecosystem. Under its Un-carrier for Business, or Un-Carrier 9.0, offering, the company began selling mobile services for $16 per line per month for up to 19 lines of service, with each one including 1GB of high-speed data. Pricing for 20 to 999 lines is $15 per line per month, including 1GB of high-speed data per line, while pricing for 1,000 lines or more is $10 per line per month.
At the same time, T-Mobile also unveiled a program aimed at consumers, starting with guaranteed rates forever and payments of up to $650 per line to buy out a new customer’s existing smartphone payment plan from either Verizon Wireless or AT&T. The offers aimed to help the company bring in new customers and keep them with T-Mobile for the long haul.
The Un-carrier 8 event in December 2014 brought what T-Mobile calls its “data stash” offering, which lets customers keep any unused data in their monthly data plans and roll it over for future use, giving them more control and fuller potential use of the data allocations that they pay for each month.
In September 2014, the company unleashed its Un-carrier 7 news, which included free mobile WiFi calling for customers.
In June 2014, T-Mobile introduced its Un-carrier 6 Music Freedom offering, which allowed customers on its Simple Choice plans to listen to streaming music from Pandora, Rhapsody, iHeartRadio, iTunes Radio, Slacker and Spotify without using their monthly high-speed data allowances. Previously, such streaming would count against a user’s data plan usage.
The Un-carrier X event will be in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.