T-Mobile Will Move Exclusively to Value Plans in 2013

Today is a big news day for T-Mobile USA. Shortly after announcing it will start selling Apple products in 2013, T-Mobile revealed the new direction it’s taking in terms of the kinds of plans it offers. In 2013, T-Mobile will move away from its Classic plans and will fully embrace Value plans.

During the Deutsche Telekom Capital Markets Day event, T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere said switching to Value plans will allow the company to shake up how mobile phone plans are traditionally handled in the United States. T-Mobile believes this move will enable customers to easily bring in their own devices, trade in devices for credit and upgrade more often.

T-Mobile’s Value plans were pretty confusing when they were first introduced. Basically, T-Mobile doesn’t want to fully subsidize the cost of on-contract phones anymore. When you go into T-Mobile with the intention of signing up for a Value plan, you’ll end up paying the full price of the phone you want in monthly installments. So, you may pay $200 for a phone up front, and $15 a month until it’s paid off. The tradeoff is that the bill for your service plan will usually be slightly lower than it would be if you were on a Classic plan.

To be honest, Value plans are still super confusing. Maybe T-Mobile will allow Classic plans to be grandfathered in once the transition starts.