T-Mobile don't care that it doesn't offer the iPhone. The carrier openly courts iPhone owners anyway, and has done so with its BYOD policy and cheap Value plans. In fact, the carrier offers up micro-SIM cards and even technical support for folks who prefer Apple's iPhone. And today, in a barefaced blog post, T-Mobile outlines how it plans to attract even more iPhone owners in the future — and its approach may even rival the service and support of carriers the device is actually on.
Starting Sept. 12, to prepare for the turbulent holiday season — it lost customers the same time last year as folks jumped ship — T-Mobile will train its staff on setting up iPhones and even have iPhone 4S demo units in-store. Additionally, the company is currently developing iOS versions of T-Mobile apps, including myAccount, Visual Voicemail and T-Mobile TV.
T-Mobile has aggressively set aside 1900MHz frequency to more widely support the iPhone, but for the most part the device will only get 2G EDGE speeds, which is excruciatingly slow compared to what's available to customers on other carriers today. Add that to the fact that the iPhone 5 will likely support global LTE, and the cost advantages on T-Mobile start to fade away. You'll also have to spend a pretty penny up front to purchase an unlocked iPhone (currently an iPhone 4S 16GB is $649).
But is the allure of unlimited data and cost savings enough to pry iPhone owners away from an AT&T or Verizon? For some folks, yes; T-Mobile has repeatedly said it supports more than one million iPhones on its network, with that figure likely growing by the day.
"Today, we don't sell the iPhone, but we do have something worth selling to people who have one," Suzanne Lowry, vice president of marketing said. "Our message to iPhone customers is simple: bring your unlocked iPhone to T-Mobile and save."
[via T-Mobile]
