Some T-Mobile customers with older plans learned yesterday that their bills will see a $5 per-line increase beginning with their April or May bills. This comes after the company raised rates last June on other legacy plans.
According to a memo obtained by CNET and written by Jon Freier, president of T-Mobile’s consumer group, affected customers were notified March 13 of the rate hike. Only those who received a notice will see the increase. Exactly which plans are rolled into this action remains up in the air.
Freier cites the “rising costs over the past several years” as the impetus behind the price push. Other carriers are facing the same headwinds, such as Verizon last December and this January, and AT&T last January and June.
Read more: Our Picks for the Best Cellphone Plans
Which legacy plans are getting the rate hike?
Based on T-Mobile’s communication to staff, it’s unclear just which customers can expect to see $5 tacked onto their lines on upcoming statements. If you received a notification via text or email, T-Mobile’s Plan Pricing Update 5LT page states that the change goes into effect April 2 and includes a few FAQs at the bottom.
People who subscribe to T-Mobile’s current lineup of plans — Go5G, Go5G Plus and Go5G Next — will not see this price change. The increase also does not apply to anyone with the company’s Price Lock guarantee or a promotional free line on their account; the memo refers to the number of those unaffected by the increase as in the “millions of customers.”
In a Reddit r/tmobile megathread, customers have been chiming in with which plans they have and whether they received the notification. (In many instances, people say their plans seemed to be unaffected, only to then add something like, “Edit: Never mind, just got the email.”) Plans mentioned include:
- Magenta MAX
- T-Mobile ONE and ONE PlusSimple Choice
- Simple Choice
- OnePlus Promo Plan
- Legacy Sprint plans
Seemingly contrary to T-Mobile’s memo, some people report that their free lines are also gaining the $5 charge — but that’s offset by a $5 credit.
Although T-Mobile says plans with “Price Lock” or the “Un-contract Promise” applied are not affected, some customers received the cost increase notification. According to the company’s FAQs, the message appears to be that if you don’t like the change, you can leave and T-Mobile will cover some of the costs: “[S]hould you decide to leave now, we will pay your final month’s recurring service charge if you let us know within 60 days.”
The Sprint plans were under an agreement in some states to not raise rates for a period of five years, which expires April 1, according to The Mobile Report; these new increases go into effect April 2.
This is the second line increase in a year
Even removing current and free plans from the calculation, the number of affected customers is unknown. Apparently last June’s increases were not applied to all legacy plans. Freier says in the memo that T-Mobile is completing the initiative begun last year.
Freier also says that “no line that received a prior increase will receive an additional adjustment as part of this initiative.” So if you saw a $5 increase on your older plan last year, this change will not be added on top of that.
The memo notes that some people “who had a price adjustment on products other than smartphones may have an adjustment on an older phone plan.” That would include someone who saw a $2 increase last year on a cellular watch plan, for example. This new price increase wouldn’t be added on top of that, but the $5 could be applied to another line on that account.
Even if the rate increase is applied, T-Mobile says all the existing benefits and rate plan types will remain the same.
In the past, people had the option to contact customer support and push back against T-Mobile’s attempt to move them onto newer, higher-priced plans, which ultimately led to the company walking back that strategy. But this increase, like the one last year, is automatically added to the affected accounts.
Read more: Our Guide to Switching Cellphone Carriers
