Way back in late 2013, T-Mobile launched its Free Data for Life program as part of Un-carrier 3, giving anyone (even non-customers) 200MB of free tablet data every month. Nearly four years later, that offer is coming to an end.
T-Mobile has announced that it’s no longer taking new tablet activations for its Free Data for Life program as of May 7, 2017. If you enrolled your tablet in the program before that date, you can continue to get 200MB of free data every 30 days for as long as you own that tablet.
As for why it made this change, T-Mobile gave the following statement to TmoNews:
“When we launched Free Data For Life in 2013, 200MB of high-speed data was a lot. Today, customers want unlimited and we’re all in with T-Mobile ONE. Customers who have T-Mobile ONE can add unlimited LTE data on a tablet for just $20 a month with autopay.
Nothing changes for current customers with Free Data For Life on a Tablet. They can keep it as long as they like.”
While 200MB of data per month probably isn’t enough for folks that use their tablet regularly, it is nice to have if you’re an ultra-light user or only use your cellular tablet as a backup device. The fact that this was free makes the deal pretty attractive to those people, and it served as a nice intro to T-Mobile for folks that weren’t already customers of the Un-carrier. That’s why it’s a bummer to see the Free Data for Life program coming to an end, but at least people that are already enrolled will continue to get their free data as long as they own the tablet that they’re using.
