T-Mobile looks to upend how businesses buy wireless
T-Mobile CEO John Legere speaks during the Un-carrier 9.0 event, Wednesday in New York, explaining the carrier’s approach to business with a new simple, straightforward and transparent plan. (John Minchillo/AP Images for T-Mobile)
After grabbing roughly 100 percent of the industry’s postpaid phone growth in 2014, T-Mobile is now taking its surging revolt against what it calls “broken” U.S. wireless practices to a new front.
On Wednesday, T-Mobile CEO John Legere announced its Un-carrier 9.0 strategy, “Un-carrier for Business,” through which it promised a “new level of transparency, simplicity and value, looking to upend how business buys wireless.”
“We’re going to do for businesses, what we’ve already been doing for consumers,” said Legere, during a presentation in New York.
“Eliminate pain points and force change. The majority of U.S. businesses — a full 99.7 percent — have less than 500 employees and don’t have the money or resources to waste debating, negotiating and deciphering the carriers’ hidden pricing. Today, we’re upending how business buys wireless with 100 percent transparent pricing, the best rates, business family discounts, and more.”
Through its new pricing strategy for businesses, T-Mobile is introducing one simple, flexible rate plan through which it will charge $15 per line for 20 to 500 lines. Every line comes with unlimited talk, text and up to 1 GB of data. Customers can add more data depending on their needs, at fixed rates.
“Now, your average American business — with or without the resources to negotiate against the gargantuan carriers — can save more than $5,100 on 20 lines over two years, which is a big deal for most small business owners,” said Mike Sievert, COO for T-Mobile.
The benefits granted to small businesses will spill over to employees and their families, Legere said.
T-Mobile Puerto Rico General Manager Jorge Martel.
In Puerto Rico, the new rate plan can benefit as many as 65,000 small and mid-sized businesses, which are the “driving force of this economy,” said Jorge Martel, general manager of the carrier’s local subsidiary.
“The majority of those businesses have 20 employees or less, so our rates are designed perfectly for them,” he said. “This plan comes at an incredibly relevant point in time, when Puerto Rican businesses are facing uncertainties over not knowing if their taxes or expenses are going to increase.”
Generally speaking, wireless carriers design rate plans for businesses having between 500 and 1,000 employees, “which makes sense stateside, but not here where small businesses drive the economy,” Martel said.
Aside from launching the new pricing plan, T-Mobile executives announced the availability of a new benefit program that offers business customers access to free web-based tools through partnerships with GoDaddy and Microsoft.
