As expensive as smartphones have become, buying a phone outright is difficult for many of us. As a result, financing through a carrier is often the best option. For years, that meant signing on for a 24-month plan, but a few years ago, Verizon and AT&T increased the lengths of their plans to 36 months in order to lock subscribers in for longer. T-Mobile didn’t follow suit at the time, but there are now signs that the Un-carrier has changed its mind.
T-Mobile ponders 36-month plans
Internal documents seen by The Mobile Report reportedly detail the carrier’s plans to introduce 36-month Equipment Installment Plans (EIPs) for at least some devices.
As if to corroborate TMR’s reporting, T-Mobile temporarily changed the product pages for some Samsung Galaxy Watch devices to include the new 36-month payments. The pages have since been reverted, but The Mobile Report managed to grab a screenshot:
As TMR notes, T-Mobile offers a “New in Two” guarantee on some of its devices. This ensures that Go5G Plus customers always have 24-month financing options when buying a new device. So, if T-Mobile planned to moves to 36-month plans, it would presumably have to eliminate this program (or change it to “New in Three,” which doesn’t really roll off the tongue). That said, the Go5G plans were recently removed for new customers.
Whatever the case, the transition to 36-month plans seems all but inevitable. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but by increasing plans from 24 to 36 months, T-Mobile is effectively locking in subscribers for an extra year. That decreases churn, which improves the carrier’s bottom line. The potential profit is going to be hard to pass up.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for any potential confirmation from T-Mobile, but in the meantime, it might not be a bad idea to prepare for the incoming change.
