It’s a story we’ve heard before: a company starts out as the little guy — the one meant to shake up a market dominated by giant corporations. Then, that company starts to grow, acquires other companies, and continues a seemingly endless quest for growth, eventually forgetting why it was created in the first place. This increasingly feels like the story of T-Mobile, initially positioned as the “Un-carrier,” but has now become the second-largest carrier in the US as of Q1 2024.
In North America, only a handful of companies offer reliable cellular services nationwide in the US and Canada. At one time, it was just AT&T and Verizon, then T-Mobile and Sprint merged in 2020, and T-Mobile became the true third major cellular carrier. Instead of staying true to its ways, however, T-Mobile has announced price hikes, anti-consumer policies, and more acquisitions in the last year alone.
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It starts with inevitable growth
After multiple acquisitions, T-Mobile is just as big as AT&T and Verizon
Corporations are always on a constant quest for growth — it’s the name of the game. But there are consequences of growth that companies must grapple with, and they become more consequential as companies are scaled up. For example, when a company is publicly traded, it has an obligation and a duty to provide shareholders with as much value as possible. It creates a tricky situation because it’s borderline impossible for these companies to satisfy their customers and their shareholders at the same time.
And boy, has T-Mobile grown. Things really heated up in 2018 when T-Mobile announced a merger with competitor Sprint for $26 billion. It barely skirted by regulators after lengthy inquiries, and became official in 2020, reducing the number of competitive, national cellular carriers from four to three. Since then, it’s been a three-way race between AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
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That wasn’t the end of T-Mobile gobbling up competitors. In fact, it was only the beginning. It already owns Boost Mobile and Metro, but it announced another billion-dollar deal to acquire Mint Mobile this year. To the dismay of some onlookers, the deal was approved by regulators.
In May 2024, it became known that T-Mobile would also acquire the majority of US Cellular, which was the last remaining regional cellular carrier in the nation. The company also spent the last half-decade trying to buy as much 5G spectrum bandwidth as possible from the FCC.
If it wasn’t clear before, it’s clear now: T-Mobile is no different from the cellular carriers it was trying to challenge with AT&T and Verizon.
Add in a few anti-consumer policies
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Large corporate structures, unsustainable quests for growth, and a duty to shareholders eventually result in anti-consumer policies. T-Mobile may have kept its identity as the Un-carrier for a while, but the inevitable anti-consumer policies are starting to creep in. In just the last few months, there have been decisions coming down from T-Mobile that have infuriated users.
First, the company announced a change in policy regarding its 5G home internet plans in April 2024. Its cellular home internet plans are, well, intended to be used at home, and the company now wants to verify that using GPS. The decision outraged users, and the policy change was delayed. However, it’s back now, so T-Mobile 5G home internet subscribers will need to jump through Netflix-level hoops to use their internet without issue.
To be fair, T-Mobile’s new policy is merely enforcing the fine print that customers agreed to when they signed up for home internet plans. The more egregious change affects how T-Mobile treats promotional offers and service cancelations. As of this month, customers will need to “maintain their line of service and EIP” if they want to receive the promotional credits advertised.
This might sound like a big deal, but when you buy a new phone with promotional credits, you might not anticipate having to keep a T-Mobile plan for two or three years to actually get the deal. T-Mobile is following in AT&T’s footsteps with this anti-consumer policy, and that alone shows that its days as the Un-carrier are over.
Price hikes are the last straw
If a company makes a promise, it should honor that promise
If you excuse everything else, it’s really hard to ignore T-Mobile’s blatant disregard for its Price Lock agreement that stated it would never increase users’ rates. Now, subscribers to Simple Choice, ONE, Magenta, Magenta Max, and other plans — all covered by the Price Lock guarantee — will see a price increase of $2 to $5 per line per month.
Customers were understandably irritated that the core promise of the Price Lock plans was tossed aside. “We’re adjusting prices to respond to rising costs, but we are committed to offering low prices and best value in postpaid wireless,” a T-Mobile representative explained in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “We offer customers more for every dollar they spend than ever before, especially when you consider taxes & fees included.”
Somehow, T-Mobile’s response to customer feedback may have been worse than the actual price hikes. Some subscribers filed an FCC complaint due to the price increases, and an official letter from T-Mobile denied that it had any obligation to never increase rates. Here’s how the company closed the brazen and arrogant letter: “based upon the foregoing, we respectfully request this complaint against T-Mobile be closed.”
It’s simply an awful decision that erodes any semblance of consumer trust that T-Mobile accrued over the years. Forget fine print and legalese — companies should keep their word, even if they aren’t legally obligated to.
This situation is so egregious because there’s a case to be made that T-Mobile does have a legal obligation to never raise Price Lock rates. Even if T-Mobile gets away with the price hike, I don’t know how anyone could trust T-Mobile again. The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior, and T-Mobile has proven it’s willing to lie and break promises to increase revenue.
To be clear, I don’t trust AT&T or Verizon either. But that’s precisely the point. At one point, T-Mobile was better than the mega-carriers that had monopoly-level power and control over the cellular market. Now, when you choose between T-Mobile, Verizon, or AT&T, it’s less about picking the best phone carrier and more about picking the lesser of three evils.
In some ways, I respect AT&T and Verizonmore than T-Mobile because they didn’t make a promise. It’s worse to make a promise and break it than never make a promise at all, and that’s why, for me, T-Mobile has officially crossed over into villainous territory.
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