T-Mobile aims to boost sales of its Home Internet fixed wireless offering via a range of promotions announced today under the Internet Freedom name. In addition, the company announced promotions for its T-Mobile Business Internet fixed wireless service and said the service would be available to business customers nationwide.
The announced T-Mobile Internet Freedom promotions will be available beginning May 10 and they include a disruptive $30 price point for home broadband, when the customer bundles a mobile Magenta MAX family plan.
“We want to be the broadband provider you choose, not the one you’re stuck with,” said T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert on a streaming video event announcing the promotions.
The company expects to force other broadband providers to offer better terms in the same way that the company did with mobile service, he said. He noted that some broadband providers impose early termination fees on customers who cancel contracts or charge extra for in-home Wi-Fi and even for self-installation.
“We’re making this entire ridiculous industry change,” he said.
According to Sievert, T-Mobile is seeing average speeds of 140 Mbps for 5G Home Internet, which he said is comparable to the average 160 Mbps seen by cable companies.
Customers signing up for T-Mobile Home Internet or Business Internet will have their price locked in at $50 a month for as long as they continue to subscribe, a press release notes.
By bundling an aggressively priced home Internet service with a mobile plan, T-Mobile is also offering an alternative to the successful home and mobile bundle strategy now in play from large cable MSOs. Verizon is also pursuing this strategy with its fixed wireless home Internet service.
T-Mobile Internet Freedom
T-Mobile Internet Freedom promotions include:
- Customers who switch from another provider will be eligible to receive virtual prepaid MasterCards valued at up to $500 to cover early termination fees
- Where Home Internet is available, households can try the service for free for 15 days – potentially without cancelling their existing fixed broadband provider
- Customers can take advantage of T-Mobile Tuesday offerings, even if they don’t have a T-Mobile mobile plan.
- Beginning next Tuesday and on Tuesdays throughout the summer, Home Internet customers can get $50 off any streaming device and 50% off YouTube TV.
On today’s webcast, Sievert noted that residential customers will need to check with T-Mobile to determine if Home Internet service is available in their area, underscoring the company’s previously revealed strategy of making the fixed wireless service available only in areas where there is sufficient capacity on the company’s mobile network, which shares the same underlying network infrastructure.
The same restriction doesn’t exist for Business Internet service, however. According to T-Mobile, the average business customer actually uses less data than the average residential customer because business customers typically don’t stream content from Netflix and similar companies.
Business customers also use the service at different times of day than residential customers, T-Mobile executives said in a question-and-answer session after today’s streaming event.
