T-Mobile announced a series of changes to its most popular phone plane on Thursday, one of which potentially means a price increase if you’re on a plan that includes a Netflix subscription
One of the side-effects of the Netflix price increase that’s been rolling out in waves recently is that T-Mobile unlimited data plan customers — for whom the carrier started throwing in a basic Netflix plan two years ago as an extra sweetener — might have to start paying more to account for that increase. We say “might,” because starting in July, if you’re a T-Mobile unlimited customer you can either pay an extra $2 a month to keep what you’ve got, or you can essentially downgrade your plan to accept a more basic Netflix subscription.
Here’s how T-Mobile explained the news in today’s announcement: To account for the Netflix price increase earlier this year, the carrier’s newly christened “Magenta” plan includes Netflix Basic for families. “Existing T-Mobile ONE customers with Netflix on Us that includes Netflix Standard will see the Netflix price change of $2 per month for Netflix Standard passed through starting in July. To avoid that, those customers can either turn off Netflix on Us or change to Magenta.”
One of the differences between those two Netflix offerings is that T-Mobile unlimited customers were given a standard Netflix account starting in 2017 that allowed for two simultaneous video streams. They can keep that, or downgrade to the Magenta plan with its basic Netflix subscription that only allows for one stream.
The other changes T-Mobile announced today included renaming its T-Mobile One plans to “Magenta,” as well as a promotion that involves offering to match discounts from rival carriers like Verizon that customers have been grandfathered into. The thinking being, those customers may be only sticking with those carriers because they don’t want to lose the discounts, something T-Mobile is now offering to match in $5 increments up to $15 for one line and $30 for two or more lines.
In addition to the Netflix-related changes, the other big highlights here are that T-Mobile One and One Plus are both getting a name change (to Magenta and Magenta Plus). They’re also getting new benefits, like the addition of a 3GB high-speed smartphone hotspot (or tethering) per line, and unlimited 3G tethering “thereafter,” where T-Mobile One previously offered no LTE hotspot.
