T-Mobile Project Dark Revealed, Plans Broken Down

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So after all the speculations and rumors, T-Mobile finally officially reveals their plans for Project Dark.

So T-Mobile breaks down the Project Dark Even More Plans into the following:

  • You choose annual contract or no contract
  • If you do no contract, you get to do an interest free payment plan for the retail cost of the phone
  • Great new phones coming out soon
  • Best pricing on 3G data
  • New affordable unlimited plans

So lets break the plans down further, shall we?

Basically, there are two plan categories. There is Even More and Even More Plus. The plans for both are pretty much the same, but the Even More Plus plans are slightly cheaper and are the No Contract plans (so no discount on the phone, instead you can do a 20 month interest free payment plan, but we’ll discuss that later).

The plans go as follows:

Individual Plans:
(Even More Price/Even More Plus Price)
Included Minutes: Talk: Talk + Text: Talk + Text + Web:
Unlimited $59.99/$49.99 $69.99/$59.99 $99.99/$79.99
1000 $49.99/$39.99 $59.99/$49.99 $89.99/$69.99
500 $39.99/$29.99 $49.99/$39.99 $79.99/$59.99
Family Plans:
(Even More Price/Even More Plus Price)
Included Minutes: Talk: Talk + Text: Talk + Text + Web:
Unlimited $99.99/$79.99 $119.99/$99.99 $30 Extra Per Phone/$139.99
1500 $79.99/$59.99 $99.99/$79.99 $30 Extra Per Phone/$119.99
750 $59.99/$49.99 $79.99/$69.99 $30 Extra Per Phone/$109.99

So you may be wondering why there is a price difference in the contracted (Even More) and the no contracted (Even More Plus) plans? Well, I’ll explain.

Keep in mind that the Even More Plus plans have no contract and no subsidizing on the phone price. Now, you can do a payment plan and get a $500 phone for $25/month added to your bill over 20 months. So if you add that to your price plan you’ll see that the prices are much more similar than you think.

Now why are the prices the way they are? Well, normally when you get a phone with a contract, the phone company subsidizes the price of the phone for you under the assumption that over the 24 month contract they will profit enough to pay for the discount they gave you. So, since they know they are not subsidizing any cost on the no contract plans and therefore don’t need to make it back in your plan, they took the high road (for once) and decided to lower the no contract plans accordingly. Make sense?

So the next step I would like to see is 2100mhz being added to their spectrum (and that enabling the euro 3G possibly, fingers crossed), and then a plan for me to get a cash loan from T-Mobile added to my Even More Plus plan so I can use that cash to go buy a Euro Unlocked phone instead 🙂 Wishful thinking…

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  • Jean

    I’m a long time T-mo customer and I must say I am not impressed by these rates. I know every situation is different, but I at most will save $5 a month on my current bill based on my usage. Additionally, now that I am looking to move up to a smartphone, Sprint’s AMA plan at $70, with phone subsidy just sells it! Project Dark isn’t enough to keep me at T-mo, I can’t imagine that it would be enough to attract a ton of customers.

  • jamyil

    i don’t think t-mobile will pull off what they need for this. yes it looks like people will only save a few bucks, but i use less than 300 min a month the rest are my fave. they also have to think who wants to pay a disconnection fee to leave their other company? At&t has the rest of the map just with the Iphone alone. i would not spend the extra $15 to get unlimited minutes. not worth it at all fuss.

  • Eric

    Just got off the phone with tmo about this… switching to Even More Plus would change the following : no longer allowed phone upgrades, cant just add data you have to pick one of the 3 plans (talk, talk/text, talk/text/data), their gonna charge you on other features and the best part the $35 per phone “migration” fee because this is a “different type of plan” so if you already have tmo your phone has to migrate to it for 35 bucks lol…. you know, now my loyalty plan doesn’t make me feel so special :/

  • Noel

    The QUESTION is if u get a phone wit the EVEN MORE PLUS price…will TMO leave it as is…like when u buy an UNLOCK PHONE w/o tampering w/ it and cutomizing it and blocking certain features??? Will there be any difference or advantage to get an UNLOCKED PHONE or a TMO phone. The only problem i can for see is the 3G compatibility of some Ulocked phones to the Tmo 3G. Does anyone know any pluses or minuses to either…pls fill me/us in, THANKS,

  • Andrew

    Maybe it’s just me, but these prices aren’t any cheaper then Sprint’s Everything plans with Any mobile. On Sprint you can get 450 anytime minutes for $70, BUT you get ALL calls to other mobile phones for free. 450 minutes is plenty considering I mostly call other mobiles. Plus I get free navigation, and the coverage in the USA on Sprint is considerably better.

  • Jean

    I like Sprint’s plan, but can CDMA phones be used in foreign countries?

  • Ping Pong

    These plans can make a significant difference depending on what you pay per month. The biggest thing Tmo is trying to promote right now is their unlimited service which is a huge difference in price than what they were in the past.

    Originally you would have paid $75 a month for myFav 300, unlim text, and unlim data. Now for $80 a month you get unlimited everything which used to be $125!

    This also helps people that don’t want to pay all their money upfront for their phones too. For example, you can get a 500 minute plan with unlim M2M and NW, unlim text, and unlim data for $60 and your myTouch will be $80 for 20 months.

    Now somebody who would have originally purchased a myTouch on the old plans would have got the normal myFavs 300 + text + data for 75 and 150 upfront for the phone. So now for practically 5 bucks more a month and 20 dollar down payment you can walk out of TMo with a brand new data phone.

    Although it might not be exceptionally important for all us phone nerds but in the big picture this will convince more people to get data phones and in the long run, once data phones become more of the norm, then we will get closer and closer to hopefully Euro or Asia pricing and get much better rates for our airtime and data.

    ***TMo rep but I think all cell companies are evil lol***

  • AdamS

    Ping Pong they are evil!

    If you sign in to change your plan to the even more plus family plan there are HUGE FEES

    35 bucks per line activation for us times 4

    then if you’re in a contract already you may be subject to a 200.00 per line early termination fee! so for us times 4

    (35×4)+ (200×4)= 940.00 fees just to switch !

    Yes it would be great to get all of our phones too unlimited text,talk and web(only 2 of ours are mytouches) but its not worth the 940 fees in our case.

    Becareful and watch the FEES!

    • Hello Adams,

      Hate to defend T-Mobile on this lol but I’ll explain why those fees exist.
      First go read the How Contracts Work post on this site.
      So the cancellation fees they are trying to hit you with makes sense for this reason. You signed a contract when you got the MyTouchs and other phones and because of that T-Mobile subsidize about $200 from the retail price of the phone so you could get it for the contract price. T-Mobile needs you to pay your bill for 2 years to make that $200 back. If you cancel before that time then they charge you a cancellation fee for the amount of the discount they gave you ($200 average). So of course if you just signed the contract and have a while left, and you want to switch to a no contract (essentially ending your current contract just as if you were cancelling).
      Heres another way to think of it, if you bought your MyTouch now when you signed up for the Even More Plus no contract plans, you would have paid $500 for it, not the $199 or less you paid for it with your contract) so the $200 cancellation fee is STILL cheaper than having to buy the phone normally with the no contract plan.

      Now, the activation fees… well I have nothing for that, that’s dumb lol Those fees are for a human to set up your new account, but since your an existing account I don’t see why they should charge you that.

      Hope that helps clarify a bit 🙂

  • AdamS

    I know how it works, Its just that we’re in a no win.

    • Hello Adams,

      Just switch to the Even More plans instead of the Even More Plus, will that save you any money? And TMo shouldn’t charge you a cancellation fee.

  • remixfa

    a little clarification

    its not a CANCELLATION FEE and it MAXs at $70 total. so if you have a 5 line account and you are going to migrate its only $70. Its $35 for the first 2 lines, and free after that.
    again tis not a CANCELLATION FEE, its a MIGRATION FEE because your existing contract is still INTACT. It does not dissapear because you switched to the EM+ plan. Once your contract expires you will never have another one, but it does not go away.

    Most people dont mind because it doesnt take but a cycle or 2 to make up that MAX $70 migration fee when moving to the new plan.

    Also, the mytouch is now 399 full retail, not 499. the only phone that tops 499 is the Touch Pro 2. So that means no phone but that one tops $20 a month on the 20month payment plan… So basically if you do the math, if you get a great phone on EM+ its the same monthly cost as the EM (with the monthly payment for the phone included) but you got a kickass phone with it so its CHEAPER over 2 years even with a mytouch when compared to the EM plan.

    EMP everything = 79.99
    mytouch on 20month payment = 20.00
    = 99.99

    OR
    EM everything = 99.99
    mytouch subsidised = 150.0

    THE EMP is ALWAYS cheaper in the end. They changed the full retail on most phones so you need to re-analize your math.

  • Hey Adam. I actually found something new today working with a customer. Apparently if you are on a contract and Migrate to an EMP. They won’t charge you a ETF unless you cancel. Let’s say you have 6 months left in the contract, it will be $35 a line to go to EMP and AS LONG AS YOU DON’T CANCEL until the end of when your contract should be, you WILL NOT be charged the termination.

    I was actually under the same impression you were when these plans first came out because I thought current customers would be left out of these great prices but after learning this today because of a particular situation I guess everyone can benefit from these plans.

  • AdamS

    Thanks Ping & Unlockr. I called up and it ended being 70 for fees and 30 less a month on our total plan. Yay!!

  • Tim

    Just to clarify for people who read this in the future, you are ONLY subject to a $200 cancellation fee if your contract was renewed AFTER the official launch date, October 25th, 2009. Otherwise there will be only the $35 migration fee. The EMP plans are not for EVERYbody, no plan ever is. But they are a huge step in the right direction. Also, customers with PDP can have this migration fee waived.

    Its a no brainer. T-Mobile is now unbeatable in the price vs service sector. Once we step up on phones, we will gain some market presence.

    Tim
    TMO Rep

  • Asianbarbie

    So I have a mytouch on the 20/month plan with an even more plus family plan, how can i just cancel this? can i surrender the phone and just cancel the plan?