On Tuesday, November 10, T-Mobile has plans to announce its big Un-carrier X (10) initiative, and if the rumors are true, this could be another huge announcement from the Magenta Carrier. Almost immediately after T-Mobile announced the impending event, the Rumor Mill began spilling out speculation. The main focus? This could be a “Music Freedom” announcement, but this one geared specifically for video.
“Video Freedom,” or whatever T-Mobile decides to call it, would be huge.
When T-Mobile announced Music Freedom all those months ago, and has since added just about every music streaming service one could ask for at this point, I thought it would be one of the biggest announcements T-Mobile ever made. The carrier has decided to take a decidedly consumer-friendly stance with almost every one of its announcements, but Music Freedom and its lack of an impact on a subscriber’s monthly data allotment was ridiculously awesome.
T-Mobile is a carrier that still promotes its unlimited data for its customers, even if only a select amount of data is available at high speeds every month. With the inclusion of Music Freedom one of the biggest factors in eating data every month for subscribers was removed from the equation, immediately freeing up faster speeds for other things – like video, or even just opening up web pages. (Because everyone hates waiting for Facebook to load.)
If the rumors are true and T-Mobile is gearing up to announce Video Freedom, to let subscribers stream as much video as they want from select sources, this is just as big as Music Freedom on its own, but even bigger when taken as a whole with the carrier’s Un-carrier initiatives. With Video and Music Freedom, T-Mobile would be essentially removing a lot of the worry that many smartphone/tablet users feel when they’re using data on their carrier’s network.
Music Freedom may have been one of T-Mobile’s biggest announcements, but it isn’t one that the other carriers have replicated. This is unfortunate, because while T-Mobile has already done a lot to change the mobile industry in the United States, this is one thing that I think a lot of carriers that aren’t T-Mobile woud benefit from, especially when it comes to customer satisfaction and appreciation.
Or, the alternative can happen. On the day before T-Mobile’s next Un-carrier announcement, I’m seriously considering switching carriers. I don’t have unlimited data as it stands, but I watch a lot of video and I stream a lot of music, oftentimes every single day. With that in mind, T-Mobile is offering a service that speaks directly to my daily usage, while the carrier I’m on now isn’t doing that at all.
T-Mobile’s network is still a questionable element for me, but I know the carrier is working on improving it, and there’s always a chance that it has gotten better in the two years since I last checked. If the Magenta Carrier has figured out the most important part of the puzzle in network availability, then these other elements are just icing on the cake.
And it’s looking more and more like a pretty delicious cake.
If you haven’t already switched to T-Mobile, would something like Video Freedom help make that decision for you? Or is there something else keeping you from making the switch? Let me know!