Over the past three years, T-Mobile has made investments in its business that include adding 1 million square miles of new LTE coverage, plus more than 25,000 new towers and cell sites, upgrading every LTE cell site and spending almost $30 billion to build out its network. The latter includes almost $8 billion spent to buy 600 MHz airwaves covering 100% of the US.The carrier loves to tout its excellence over rivals that it believes are stagnating and offer a less impressive product. T-Mobile, in fact, believes in that idea so much that it’s going to start letting people test-drive, if you will, its service for one month — free of charge.
In a video blog that you can watch above, T-Mobile CEO John Legere on Wednesday unveiled a “Test Drive” deal that allows anyone who wants to try the fruits of T-Mobile’s expanded LTE network investment for up to 30 days for free. It’s meant to remove one of the biggest pain points in the carrier business, the fact that you basically have to sign up and lock yourself into a carrier’s service before you, really, get a taste of it.
What’s more, T-Mobile isn’t merely asking customers to come and try it out. Customers can also score a free T-Mobile network hotspot from www.t-mobile.com/testdrive and sync it to any carrier via Wi-Fi. It’s a continuation, in fact, as well as an improvement on T-Mobile trying a version of the same thing back in 2014. Back then, the carrier also unveiled a way to let customers get a taste of their network for free, but it meant carrying around a second phone with a second phone number — and you were limited to only seven days.
Through the “Test Drive” deal announced today, you can keep your existing handset and phone number for the duration of your test of T-Mobile’s LTE network.
“Our network is open for anyone to try because we have nothing to hide — can your carrier say that?” Legere said in a release about the news. “At T-Mobile, the strength of our network speaks for itself … we’re so confident in it, we’re giving people a free 30-day test drive.”
Here’s how to sign up:
- Sign up for the free month “Test Drive” at http://www.t-mobile.com/testdrive. T-Mobile will then send out a free Coolpad Surf Device hotspot.
- Turn on the hotspot, and it will connect to T-Mobile’s LTE network. Connect any carrier smartphone to it via Wi-Fi.
- Use T-Mobile’s data coverage for up to 30 days or 30 GB, whichever comes first. After the trial is up, simply drop off the hotspot at a T-Mobile store, and you’re done.
