What you need to know
- T-Mobile ONE is being rebranded to Magenta.
- Netflix on Us now includes the Basic plan instead of the Standard one.
- You now get 3GB of LTE hotspot access before being slowed down to 3G.
Nothing's more fun than when carriers change their wireless plans, and on May 23, T-Mobile announced some pretty significant changes for its T-Mobile ONE unlimited plan.
First thing's first, the name "T-Mobile ONE" is out. Starting June 2, it'll be replaced by "Magenta." Magenta is mostly the same as T-Mobile ONE, offering unlimited talk, text, LTE data, free international texting + 2G data, access to T-Mobile Tuesdays, and one hour of free in-flight Wi-Fi on Gogo-enabled planes.
You'll be charged an extra $2/month if you stay on T-Mobile ONE and don't switch to Magenta.
That's all fine and dandy, but as part of this change, T-Mobile's adjusting its Netflix on Us promo and making it a little less enticing. Before this change, T-Mobile ONE plans with two lines or more included a free Netflix Standard plan — allowing you to stream on up to two devices at once in HD with the ability to download titles to two phones/tablets. However, as a result of Netflix's price increase back in January, Magenta now comes with the Basic plan. This limits you to streaming on just one screen at a time in SD and only being able to download content on one of your devices.
T-Mobile ONE subscribers will keep their Standard subscription, but starting in July, will be charged an additional $2/month on their bill. To avoid that extra fee, you can migrate your plan to a Magenta one and get downgraded to Netflix Basic.
Thankfully, it's not all bad news. Where T-Mobile ONE plans only came with unlimited 3G hotspot access, Magenta now includes 3GB of LTE data before being slowed down to 3G speeds. T-Mobile says this is an added value of $3/month per line, and while I'm still annoyed with the Netflix changes, this is a nice peace offering of sorts.
T-Mobile will start selling its Magenta plans on June 2 with the same pricing we had with T-Mobile ONE, including one line for $70/month and two lines for $120/month.
