T-Mobile US on Wednesday set out its stall to take on bigger rivals AT&T and Verizon in the business services space.
In a characteristically flamboyant presentation, T-Mobile CEO John Legere announced his company’s intention to offer simple mobile tariffs geared primarily towards small and medium-sized businesses. At the same time the executive also announced two new initiatives to attract consumers to its network: it will buy their devices for them and pledged to retain flat prices for the next two years.
"We’re going to do to the business [space] what we did two years ago to the consumer segment," Legere said.
The way AT&T and Verizon treat their business customers is a "disgrace", Legere said, noting that his rivals offer services that are difficult to understand and opaque tariff plans.
Nonetheless, the pair control the bulk of the market. The big four telcos in the U.S. together generate $83 billion in business revenues; of that, "87% is by dumb and dumber," Legere said, and a further $10 billion goes to Sprint.
The plans put forward by the big two were primarily created for large corporates, but 99.7% of 27 million businesses i n the U.S. have fewer than 500 employees, while around 90% have fewer than 20.
"They feel like they are getting screwed," Legere said.
T-Mobile has launched a new business plan with prices that are "42% lower than AT&T and Verizon," Legere said,
Furthermore, "it’s simple," he said. "It makes the choice easy. [There are] no complicated formulas."
The plan costs $16 per line for 10 lines, falling to $15 per line for 100 lines and beyond. Each line includes 1 GB of data, and businesses can choose whether to pay for additional data on a per line basis or with a data pool; both options have clear pricing structures and companies will not incur any overage penalties.
T-Mobile is also bundling in some freebies, including a free dotcom domain and mobile-optimised Website in partnership with GoDaddy, free business email through a deal with Microsoft, and discounts for the families of business users.
The telco also took the opportunity to make headline-grabbing alterations to its consumer offers too.
29 million Americans are stuck with their carrier because they have device payment plans. To attract those customers, T-Mobile is offering to pay "all outstanding phone payments of AT&T, Verizon, and we’re even going to cover leases," Legere said.
"We’ll pay up to $650 per phone…when you switch to T-Mobile," he said.
Finally, Legere announced the arrival of the "un-contract", which will see T-Mobile freeze bills for customers using its Simple Choice plans.
"Your rates may go down but they won’t go up," he promised, adding "all promotion plans now become permanent."
Customers with unlimited LTE data allowances will have their rates frozen for at least the next two years, he said.
