T-Mobile continues to raise the stakes against AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint with another improbable promotion that literally gives away an extra line of service for free.

“Today, I’m thanking customers by giving them one of the things they want the most – a way to connect more of their family or more of their devices all the time,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile.  “That’s why we’re giving customers a free line to use any way they choose!”

The press release offers customers a variety of options:

Current T-Mobile customers with at least two voice lines can use that extra line however they want. Get an extra line of unlimited T-Mobile ONE. Or if you have Simple Choice, you’ll get an extra Simple Choice line with your same data plan. Or use your free line for a new tablet or smartwatch. Or turn your car into a 4G LTE hotspot and a lot more with SyncUp Drive. It’s your call!

The “2 Unlimited Lines for $100 All In” promotion that began this morning offers new or current customers a chance to score a free extra line of service (after bill credits). The discount continues indefinitely and is also good for customers with more than two lines on their T-Mobile account. Here are the details:

• How do I get the free add a line promotion?
  • Starting March 1st, for a limited time only, anyone activating 2 unlimited lines on T-Mobile ONE, and existing customers with at least 2 voice lines on T-Mobile ONE or Simple Choice can get 1 additional line for FREE after bill credit.
  • All free lines must be activated during the promotional period and you can keep the promotional pricing as long as you maintain qualifying service and line count. Customers may take advantage of this offer in addition to other offers and promotions, including 2/$100 and Carrier Freedom.
• Who’s eligible for this promotion?
  • New customers, current customers and employees are eligible to receive this offer as long as they are on a qualifying rate plan, have two paid voice lines, and an account in good standing.
  • Customers with one voice line will need to migrate to T-Mobile ONE and add a second paid voice line to qualify for the FREE Line. Qualifying new and existing @Work customers may add one additional qualifying line on us for a max of 12 lines total.
• How does the offer work?
  • The free line will match your current paid voice line data, i.e. T-Mobile ONE customers will receive a FREE T-Mobile ONE line and similarly, Simple Choice customers will receive a FREE Simple Choice line.
  • If your lines have varying amounts of data, the free line will match the line with the least amount of data. Existing customers with two paid voice lines get a free line whether you’re adding a smartphone line, tablet line or wearable.
  • In most cases, you will see your free line credit on your first bill. If credit is not applied on the first bill, two credits will appear on the second bill.
  • For customer’s not on the new T-Mobile ONE taxes and fees included plan, taxes/fees may be applied to pre-bill credit price. A maximum of 1 free line can be added per account.
  • If you cancel service on one of your lines within 12 months or migrate to another plan, you will lose the monthly bill credit for the free line.
• Where is this offer available?
  • Anywhere that T-Mobile offers new lines of service, including T-Mobile retail stores nationwide, and authorized postpaid dealers.

Legere

For most customers, signing up with a T-Mobile ONE plan with unlimited phone, texting, and data will offer the best value and simplify the promotion by matching the same kinds of service on all three (or more) lines. This also guarantees your new line will cost absolutely nothing because T-Mobile ONE bundles all taxes and fees into the cost of service, which in this case is free. On similar promotions at other carriers, customers are on the hook for up to $10 a month in taxes, fees, and various surcharges on that “free” line.

You can bring a device to this plan or buy one from T-Mobile. A new SIM card is required, and T-Mobile charges an outrageous $25 to get one through their website or in stores. But many customers report if you call T-Mobile customer service from a T-Mobile phone on 611, a discounted SIM card for 99 cents is usually available if you ask.

T-Mobile has not put an expiration date on the offer. Judging from customer buzz, there is considerably interest in this offer and a lot of disbelief it comes free of charge.

T-Mobile acknowledges there are some billing issues going on at the wireless carrier as it continues to add customers. At present, customers will see a charge for the service followed by a bill credit, which may take up to two bill cycles to appear (but is retroactive back to your signup date.). It appears T-Mobile bills customers for the free line of service several days before a corresponding credit is issued, which has confused some customers being billed for a service and credited for it on the following month’s invoice. But many on autopay say T-Mobile actually deducts the correct amount (with the credit applied) no matter what the bill indicates. Customer service is also on hand to issue on the spot credits for concerned customers, and T-Mobile claims it is working through this billing issue and should have it resolved.

To take advantage of this offer, customers must not have canceled a line after Jan. 1, 2017. T-Mobile wants this offer to encourage customers to add lines, not convert existing lines from one plan to another.

Pai

As a result of the multibillion dollar cable merger between Charter Communications, Bright House Networks, and Time Warner Cable, the three companies involved freely admitted: your cable bill was unlikely to decrease, you won’t have any new competitive options, there was no guarantee your service would improve, or that you would get faster broadband service than what Time Warner Cable Maxx was already delivering to about half its customer base.

While shareholders and Wall Street bankers made substantial gains, top Time Warner Cable executives walked away with multimillion dollar golden parachute packages, and Charter took control of what is now the country’s supersized, second most powerful cable operator, regulators also required the dealmakers share at least a tiny portion of the spoils with customers.

Then President Donald Trump’s FCC chairman — Ajit Pai — took leadership of the telecom regulator. Now all bets are off.

Pai is reconsidering the settled deal conditions imposed by the FCC under the last administration, and wants to give Charter Communications a free pass to let them out of their commitment to compete. Last week, Pai circulated a petition among his fellow commissioners to roll back the commitment Charter acknowledged to expand its service area to at least one million new homes that already get broadband service from another cable or telephone company.

Former FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler sought the competition requirement to prove that cable operators can successfully run their businesses in direct competition with each other, potentially inspiring other cable companies to face off with incumbent operators outside of their own territories. A paradigm shift worked for Google, which inspired ISPs to boost speeds in light of its gigabit Google Fiber service, which reset customer expectations.

The FCC order approving the merger deal was hardly onerous, requiring Charter to compete head-to-head for customers in places the company can choose itself. Lawmakers eliminated exclusive cable franchise agreements years ago, but established major cable operators like Charter have gone out of their way to avoid competing in areas that already receive cable service. While Wheeler may have hoped some of that competition would be directed against fellow cable companies, Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge quickly made clear to investors and the FCC Charter would continue to avoid direct cable competition, instead promising to expand service into non-cable areas that already get DSL service from the phone company or no broadband at all.

“When I talked to the FCC, I said I can’t overbuild another cable company, because then I could never buy it, because you always block those,” Rutledge said. “It’s really about overbuilding telephone companies.”

Charter’s CEO believes most phone companies are not competing on the same level as cable operators and are unwilling to make the necessary investments to upgrade their aging wired infrastructure to offer faster internet speeds. That makes competing with telephone companies like Windstream, Frontier, and Verizon’s DSL-only service areas a much better proposition than trying to compete head-to-head with Comcast, Cox, or Cablevision.

Rutledge’s clear views about Charter’s expansion plans apparently never made it to the American Cable Association, a cable industry lobbying group that defends the interests of independent and smaller cable operators. Despite Rutledge’s public statements, the ACA and its members are afraid Charter could expand on their turf anyway, potentially forcing small cable operators to compete with the same level of service Charter offers. The horror.

The ACA’s arguments found a sympathetic audience in Mr. Pai and now he wants to let Charter off the hook, at the expense of competition and better service for consumers.

Under the proposal circulated by Pai, Charter would still be required to expand its cable broadband service by at least one million new homes, but those homes would no longer have to be in areas outside of Charter’s existing service footprint. In practical terms, this would mean Charter would focus on wiring areas not far from where it provides service today — ‘DSL or nothing’-country. Charter would also be able to fritter away the number of expansions required by counting newly constructed neighborhood developments it would have likely wired anyway, as well as upgrading its remaining shoddy legacy cable systems — some still incapable of offering broadband or phone service.

The ACA’s talking points prefer to emphasize the David vs. Goliath scenario of a big bully of a cable company like Charter being forced to compete (and likely obliterate) existing small cable operators:

“The overbuild condition imposed by the FCC on Charter is stunningly bad and inexplicable government policy,” said ACA president and CEO Matthew Polka, in a statement. “On the one hand, the FCC found that Charter will be too big and therefore it imposed a series of conditions to ensure it does not exercise any additional market power. At the same time, the FCC, out of the blue, is forcing Charter to get even bigger.”

The real goal here is to minimize direct competition at all costs. The FCC’s deal conditions already included the need for more rural broadband expansion. Wheeler’s second goal was to introduce a new model — cable company competing against cable company — fighting for new customers by offering consumers better service and pricing. The existence of such competition would belie the industry’s claim that cable overbuilds and head-to-head competition is uneconomical. Wildly profitable, perhaps not, but certainly possible. Historically, the traditional way cable operators dealt with the few instances of direct cable competition was to buy them out to put them out of business. Rutledge was certainly thinking along those lines when he complained that the FCC’s order to compete did not include permission to eventually devour its competitor, effectively making competition go away.

Had Charter chosen to compete with cable companies not afraid to spend money to upgrade service above and beyond the anemic broadband speeds Charter offers, it would likely find few takers for its maximum 300Mbps broadband service that comes with a $200 install fee.

“Why would we go where we could get killed?” Rutledge admitted.

Industry claims that the cable business is already fiercely competitive are also countered by Rutledge’s own statements making clear direct competition with brethren cable companies on the cusp of speed-boosting DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades was bad for business. Instead, he would focus on competing with inferior phone companies, which he characterized as mired in debt, still skeptical about the financial wisdom of fiber optic upgrades, and the only competitor where dismal 3-10Mbps DSL service presented a ripe opportunity to steal customers away.

Clyburn – A likely “no” vote.

Charter’s merger approval and its conditions are a sealed deal that was acceptable to Charter and its shareholders and at least offered small token treats to ordinary consumers. Mr. Pai’s willingness to reopen and undo those commitments is just one reason we’ve referred to his regulatory philosophy as irresponsible, nakedly anti-consumer, and anti-competitive. Mr. Pai’s willingness to embrace things as they are comes at the same time most consumers are paying the highest broadband bills ever while also facing an epidemic of usage caps, usage billing, and increasing service and equipment fees. Mr. Pai’s other actions, including ending an effort to introduce competition into the set-top box market, curtailing customer privacy, ending inquiries on usage caps/zero rating, threatening to eliminate Net Neutrality, and reducing the FCC’s already anemic focus on consumer protection makes it clear Mr. Pai is a company man, on a mission to defend the interests of Big Telecom companies and their lobbyists (that also have a history of hiring friendly regulators for high-paying positions once their government job ends.)

That conclusion seems apt considering what Mr. Pai said about Chairman Wheeler’s vision of improving broadband: “one more step down the path of micromanaging where, when, and how ISPs deploy infrastructure.” Missing from his statement are consumers who have spent the last 20 years watching ISPs govern themselves while waiting… waiting… waiting for broadband service that never comes.

Mr. Pai’s proposal needs just one additional vote to win passage. That extra vote is unlikely until President Trump appoints another Republican commissioner. Pai’s proposal isn’t likely to win support from the sole remaining Democrat commissioner still at the FCC — Mignon Clyburn.

Verizon will invite several thousand customers in 11 cities to participate in a “pre-commercial” beta test of its newly built 5G wireless network during the first half of 2017.

The fixed wireless, home broadband replacement will be provided over a limited coverage area in these cities: Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Bernardsville, N.J., Brockton, Mass., Dallas, Denver, Houston, Miami, Sacramento, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

Verizon’s announcement only generally promotes the future potential of 5G service without being too specific about what it intends to offer. We expect the service will be marketed as a wireless home broadband service, not for those on the go. There is no finalized standard for 5G service yet, so Verizon’s adaptation isn’t necessarily going to be the final standard and could change before the wireless provider expands the service to other customers.

“The 5G systems we are deploying will soon provide wireless broadband service to homes, enabling customers to experience cost-competitive, gigabit speeds that were previously only deliverable via fiber,” said Woojune Kim, vice president, Next Generation Business Team, Samsung Electronics.

Verizon’s ability to offer gigabit speeds will depend on several factors:

• Backhaul connectivity: Verizon will likely choose areas where fiber connectivity is already installed, either as part of its FiOS project or through its fiber connections to cell towers. Because of the very high frequencies involved, 5G connectivity will be line-of-sight and the coverage area will be very limited, within a mile or less of the tower or small cell infrastructure Verizon will depend on to provide service to each neighborhood.
• Distance and signal quality: 5G service will be distance sensitive and fixed wireless will require the installation of an antenna either pointed out a window or installed externally on a building. The further away, the slower the speed.
• Shared network: Total available bandwidth on a 5G tower or small cell is shared among all users connected to it. During the initial beta test, speeds are likely to be very high. That may not stay the case as Verizon adds customers to its service.

Verizon has avoided mentioning specific speed tiers, pricing, whether service is unlimited or usage capped, equipment costs, and contract terms. We are also not aware if the service will be marketed by Verizon Communications, the wireline company that also markets FiOS or Verizon Wireless, the mobile operator side of Verizon.

Several of the test cities represent Verizon’s first home broadband invasion on other providers’ turf. Frontier Communications is likely unhappy to learn it faces direct competition from Verizon in Dallas. Verizon sold its landline and FiOS network in Texas to Frontier. Most of the other test cities seem to avoid direct competition with Charter Communications, as almost all are serviced by Comcast. The new 5G service will also compete directly with AT&T in Michigan, Georgia, Texas, Florida, and California.

Unlimited data is back.

AT&T has followed Verizon Wireless back the era of unlimited data plans, starting tomorrow.

The AT&T Unlimited plan will be available to all customers, not just those signed up with DirecTV, and will be expensive. A single line unlimited voice, text, and data plan will reportedly cost $100 a month. Customers switching four lines to unlimited data will pay $180 after a $40 bill credit kicks in 60 days after signing up. This means for the first two months, customers will pay $220 for the privilege of unlimited data.

The new plan is open to residential and business/corporate accounts and business customers will also get the benefit of any corporate discounts.

AT&T’s definition of “unlimited” actually means 22GB. If you exceed that amount, AT&T reserves the right to slow your data connection “during periods of network congestion.”

The plan includes:

• unlimited calls from the U.S. to Canada and Mexico
• unlimited texts to over 120 countries
• talk, text and use data in Canada and Mexico with no roaming charges when adding the free Roam North America feature
• the ability to switch off AT&T’s “Stream Saver” which limits online video playback to 480p

“We’re always listening to our customers and will continue to evolve to provide more choice, more convenience, and more value,” claims AT&T in a press release. But observers believe AT&T listens to the competitive realities of the marketplace more than its customers who never wanted to lose the option of unlimited data in the first place.

AT&T’s U-verse TV has been losing customers for over a year. (Image: Market Realist)

AT&T wants its U-verse TV video service dead, but is willing to watch it bleed customers for a while before likely downsizing or axing the service to make room for better broadband speeds.

The phone company has allowed U-verse TV to wither on the vine for more than a year, losing hundreds of thousands of customers every quarter since late 2015, and surprisingly has done almost nothing to stop the subscriber losses. In all, more than a million AT&T U-verse TV customers canceled service in 2016.

AT&T has admitted it has abandoned aggressively marketing its U-verse TV platform and has put its marketing muscle into selling DirecTV, the satellite provider AT&T acquired two years ago. DirecTV has added customers at a remarkably similar rate that AT&T has been losing U-verse TV customers. AT&T is even willing to watch customers walk into the arms of their competitors, a clear sign AT&T hopes their U-verse TV customers churn away.

Customers report U-verse TV-related promotions and retention plans have gotten worse in the last 14 months and some tell Stop the Cap! they were steered to DirecTV when they contacted AT&T to discuss their options.

Even the U-verse brand is being gradually discontinued. AT&T recently rebranded its fiber to the home service AT&T Fiber, dropping the AT&T U-verse with GigaPower brand the company had used since first announcing gigabit speed access.

AT&T U-verse as a brand is slowly disappearing in favor of AT&T Fiber.

Market Realist reports AT&T doesn’t necessarily want to spend a lot of money upgrading its legacy U-verse fiber to the neighborhood network across its entire landline service area, but needs to boost broadband speeds to stay competitive with cable broadband. When U-verse was originally launched, the service reserved much of its available bandwidth for television service, limiting broadband speeds to a maximum of around 24Mbps. That is no longer seen as competitively adequate and that leaves AT&T with only two options: upgrade its legacy infrastructure to support fiber-fed gigabit speed or reduce the amount of bandwidth devoted to television services and use it to expand broadband speeds.

AT&T is doing a little of both, expanding its gigabit broadband service in very limited areas in 46 cities with 23 more to come sometime this year. An indication of just how few customers can actually buy AT&T’s gigabit speeds was revealed indirectly by AT&T. Only four million homes and businesses, including 650,000 apartment and condo units can buy 1,000Mbps broadband from AT&T nationwide. Los Angeles and Chicago — both AT&T Fiber service areas, combined have more than five million potential customers alone.

In many cases, fewer than 10% of AT&T’s customers in AT&T Fiber cities can actually buy the service. In Knoxville, Tenn., AT&T admitted its gigabit service was only available in about 30 apartment and condominium complexes.

AT&T is promising to expand its fiber service to reach at least 12.5 million customers in 67 metro areas by the summer of 2019. But that will still likely leave more than half of AT&T’s customers out of reach of the service.

AT&T has told investors it plans no blockbuster budget increases to aggressively roll out fiber service across its footprint, which includes much of the south and midwest and large sections of California. Instead, it will likely offer fiber service to new housing developments, multi-dwelling units, and higher income areas. That decision still requires AT&T to do something for customers not on a near-term upgrade list, and that will likely be a gradual transformation of legacy U-verse into broadband-only service with speeds closer to 50-75Mbps, where video streaming from services like DirecTV Now can travel over the top to customers.