T-Mobile is taking a swipe at its competitors by offering to pay early termination fees for anyone willing to defect from companies like Verizon and AT&T.
This could be a big boon for families, who often have multiple two-year contracts ending at different times, making it very difficult to switch carriers without getting hit with a fee. While some flagship smartphones, like Motorola's Moto X, are relatively affordable without a contract, the most popular models from companies like Apple and Samsung usually run upwards of $800 without a two-year commitment.
The company hopes to lure customers away from competitors by offering to pay up to $350 per canceled line and up to $300 for each device traded in for a new T-Mobile-eligible phone.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere wasn't shy when announcing the news. Wearing a bright pink shirt and holding a Red Bull, he told a crowd at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas that family plans were "horses***" that were "nothing but contracts on super-steroids." He also called out T-Mobile's competitors by name, including a back-handed compliment commending Verizon for admitting that its network was "bloated" — which might have something to do with the fact that T-mobile just bought $3.3 billion of Verizon spectrum.
This is days after he crashed and was kicked out of AT&T's CES party starring Macklemore.
Speaking of AT&T, the telecom giant unveiled a similar deal a week earlier, offering T-Mobile customers up to $200 per every line switched over and up to $250 for every smartphone trade-in. T-Mobile's offer starts on Jan. 9, 2014.
Keith Wagstaff writes about technology for NBC News. He previously covered the tech beat for TIME's Techland and wrote about politics as a staff writer at TheWeek.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @kwagstaff and reach him by email at: [email protected]
