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T-Mobile on Wednesday introduced a new entry-level $40-per-month plan that includes unlimited talk and text along with 500 megabytes of high-speed data.
Unlike other T-Mobile plans, the Simple Starter option doesn’t throttle users down to a slower speed when they hit the limit. Instead, customers are prompted to buy a day or week pass or switch to one of the company’s standard Simple Choice plans.
T-Mobile said the new plan also qualifies for the company’s program where it pays the early termination fees for switchers that come from another carrier and trade in their old phone.
“Right now at the value segment the deals that are out there are outrageous,” chief marketing officer Mike Sievert said in an interview.
While AT&T and Verizon have plans close to that price range, T-Mobile says the data limits are so low and the overage fees so high that many customers will face larger bills.
“It’s a bait and switch. Typical customers will easily pay double that,” Sievert said. “People need to call them out for this.”
T-Mobile said it plans to have more news each day for the next three days, promising news tomorrow for another segment of the market.
“We’ve been a little quieter lately,” Sievert said. But those who thought the company was done shaking things up, Sievert says, “were far from correct.”
In a blog post, CEO John Legere teed off on the company’s rivals.
“Just look at the frenzy of knee jerk moves the competition launched in recent weeks,” Legere said. “It’s been fascinating to watch the big, fat, old-guard carriers stumble as they try to respond and slow the change we are driving into this industry. I don’t know whether to laugh or cringe as they try to present themselves as anything other than the merciless greedy utilities they are.”
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
