T-Mobile's 'Music Freedom' lets users stream music for free from services like iTunes Radio
In an announcement during the "Un-Carrier 5.0" press conference on Wednesday, T-Mobile skipped the wait and went straight to "Un-Carrier 6.0," a program that lets customers stream music from top Internet radio services without having the data used count against their allotted monthly plans.
Officially called Music Freedom, the initiative will roll out with initial support for eight services including iTunes Radio, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Rhapsody, Spotify, Slacker, Samsung's Milk Music and Beatport. According to T-Mobile, about 85 percent of total Internet radio usage is generated by the first six services mentioned.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere said the new plan is meant to highlight the carrier's network strength.
"As a committed music freak, I'm personally outraged at the way the other guys are using the music you love to lure you into over-priced plans with sweet 'promotional offers' that quickly roll into higher prices or trigger those absurd overage charges," Legere said in a prepared statement. "Music should be free of all that. Music should have no limits."
With no overage charges or data caps, Music Freedom is basically an all-you-can-eat service for streaming music platforms.
Further, T-Mobile plans to add more providers at a later date. The company is running a poll on its website where people can vote for candidate services, including Beats Music, which Apple recently acquired as part of a $3 billion acquisition of parent company Beats.
As is his style, Legere took the announcement as an opportunity to slam competing carriers, saying they are either too greedy or simply unwilling to offer a similar free service on their networks.
Officially called Music Freedom, the initiative will roll out with initial support for eight services including iTunes Radio, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Rhapsody, Spotify, Slacker, Samsung's Milk Music and Beatport. According to T-Mobile, about 85 percent of total Internet radio usage is generated by the first six services mentioned.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere said the new plan is meant to highlight the carrier's network strength.
"As a committed music freak, I'm personally outraged at the way the other guys are using the music you love to lure you into over-priced plans with sweet 'promotional offers' that quickly roll into higher prices or trigger those absurd overage charges," Legere said in a prepared statement. "Music should be free of all that. Music should have no limits."
With no overage charges or data caps, Music Freedom is basically an all-you-can-eat service for streaming music platforms.
Further, T-Mobile plans to add more providers at a later date. The company is running a poll on its website where people can vote for candidate services, including Beats Music, which Apple recently acquired as part of a $3 billion acquisition of parent company Beats.
As is his style, Legere took the announcement as an opportunity to slam competing carriers, saying they are either too greedy or simply unwilling to offer a similar free service on their networks.
Comments
"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
Absolutely agree. Streaming music is probably one of the main causes of data overages.*
*Disclaimer. This IS an assumption
No cynicism here. Free anything (with no fine print) is good. There is no fine print, right?
They are not good for artists. How many million plays do you lot think one song needs to make any money even worth mentioning about?
You need to buy the music to support us smaller artist instead of using damn streaming. And people thought illegal downloading is bad, no, this is the bad one for us artists.
Another damn 0.000000000000000001 cent a play. Weeks of hard work in a studio. Ge thanks, you twats!
My step father used to always say he stuck with Verizon because it had the best call network based on the range of areas it covered. Yet he never left Ann Arbor Michigan where both Tmobile and AT&T have great coverage. Tmobile for a lot less. I have had tmobile for 8 years and have traveled to various places in the US with no problems making and receiving calls. In some remote areas of Michigan, data is sometimes a problem, but I am hardly in those areas.
Further, I remember when AT&T first got the iPhone. Lots of people complained about data speed. Yet as AT&T grew its business, data speeds improved. Since the proposed merger with AT&T died, TMobile has greatly improved its data speeds as well.
For many people Tmobile is a great option.
I agree.
So much for net neutrality.
Goodbye Verizon.
Hello T-Mobile iPhone 6.
Let me know when TM offers unlimited porn
"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
FWIW, my T-Mo plan is month to month, $30, with unlimited data
That sounds pretty good. Is that 4G on an iPhone? How many minutes?
Can you tether? If you're getting 4G, I'm switching. I have an unlocked iPhone 5.
Hotspot is rogue, but I use it all the time.
Any unlocked GSM phone will work, AFAIK, but you have to either bring your own or pay it off with T-Mob over time. Still MUCH cheaper than a subsidized contract.
My plan isn't available right now, but they are letting me keep it for some reason.
Well all t-mobile plans are month-to-month, no contract. For the $80 a month plan it's unlimited minutes and unlimited data. I get pretty much great coverage everywhere except my girlfriends place.
I think all iPhone 5 are unlocked from the start, or maybe just the Verizon ones.
The only plan you can tether on is the unlimited everything plan and you get 5gb a month for tethering.
Great. More services with subscriptions where only the company it self makes any real money, and as usual, the artists hardly make anything. And they try to pay us as little as possible as usual. I absolutely hate all these damn streaming services.
They are not good for artists. How many million plays do you lot think one song needs to make any money even worth mentioning about?
You need to buy the music to support us smaller artist instead of using damn streaming. And people thought illegal downloading is bad, no, this is the bad one for us artists.
Another damn 0.000000000000000001 cent a play. Weeks of hard work in a studio. Ge thanks, you twats!
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/19/zoe-keating-spotify-streaming-royalties ;
Well all t-mobile plans are month-to-month, no contract. For the $80 a month plan it's unlimited minutes and unlimited data. I get pretty much great coverage everywhere except my girlfriends place.
I think all iPhone 5 are unlocked from the start, or maybe just the Verizon ones.
The only plan you can tether on is the unlimited everything plan and you get 5gb a month for tethering.
Verizon iPhones are not CDMA, not GSM. So with a GSM phone you get to swap SIM cards and jump networks. A Verizon phone is stuck there.
Tethering works fine without the unlimited everything plan. On my Nexus 4, I just use the vanilla Android teather, and can feed my wife's iPads and my kids' iPod Touches. For tethering a Windows laptop, the network recognizes the browser's User Agent string (IE, FF, and Chrome), and a T-Mobile tethering plan message shows up in the browser. But, in Chrome on those Windows laptops, I use the User Agent Spoofer extension to spoof it as Safari, and T-Mobile lets it through fine. I'm not sure why they are ok with Safari -- maybe just fewer Apple owners dodging hotspot services?
$80/month reminds me of how great of a plan I have. While I don't have unlimited minutes, the extra minutes are cheap, and included minutes are usually plenty. It's awesome that you can go unlimited even for $80 though, because Verizon just adds $5/Gb for plans seemingly forever, at $10/month increments (they list a $350/month plan! -- a$$holes).
I wonder when someone will just start selling data by the Mb. Once someone breeches that threshold, things will get much nicer in the US.
The iPhone 5 can be used on any network, I moved from Verizon to T-Mobile with the same iPhone 5 and only had to switch out the SIM. Although I don't think that's the case with older iPhones. And I am getting 4g on my phone and it's comparable to the speed on Verizon.
I maxed out my Verizon plan with about 8gb and was paying around $140 or so a month. So glad I had this option.
The iPhone 5 can be used on any network, I moved from Verizon to T-Mobile with the same iPhone 5 and only had to switch out the SIM. Although I don't think that's the case with older iPhones. And I am getting 4g on my phone and it's comparable to the speed on Verizon.
I maxed out my Verizon plan with about 8gb and was paying around $140 or so a month. So glad I had this option.
Ah, yeah, I'm seeing now that many high-end phones are moving to dual SIM (CDMA plus GSM). Cool!
Interesting that we're to the point that it makes sense to carry two radios and only have to test one platform rather than having two separate supply chains. Looks like the S5 has gone this way too.