T-Mobile Caps Data Roaming to Keep Prices Low

The Bellevue, Wash.-based carrier's changes will take effect on April 5, according to TmoNews. T-Mobile will give customers with a 2-gigabyte data plan 50-megabytes of roaming data, those with the 5-gigabyte plan will be given 100-megabytes, and the 10-gigabyte plan will provide 200-megabytes.

Business and government accounts will be exempt, but all other account holders will receive a text message when they near their limits and roaming data services will be cut off once they hit it.

These kinds of service limitations often invite negative publicity, but this new change will not affect many customers. T-Mobile said it expect only 10,000 people will notice the changes to its roaming data service, a small number when compared to the carrier's millions of subscribers. Still, while Sprint limits domestic data roaming, competitors Verizon and AT&T do not.

T-Mobile said the change comes at a time when the carrier is looking to "continue providing competitive pricing options in the industry". The carrier is in the process of recovering from its failed merger with AT&T, which saw the company lose millions of subscribers as customers began to count the company out as a competitor in the wireless market.

T-Mobile has been operating at a loss since AT&T proposed a buyout of the company in March of last year. Now, T-Mobile is attempting to bounce back and reassert itself as a competitor in the U.S. wireless industry.

T-Mobile will use the $3 billion break-up fee it received from AT&T to get back on its feet. Part of that fee could go to efforts to expand and consolidate its spectrum, which may be enough for it to begin work on an LTE network that will put it back in the 4G data race and make efforts to curtail customer data usage less necessary.

Verizon, AT&T and Sprint all have large leads over T-Mobile in their LTE plans and total number of subscribers, leaving the fourth place carrier to look for any advantage it can to stay competitive. T-Mobile's pricing has been an area where it has stood out from its competitors. The carrier has several low-priced options for customers looking for data and voice that customers likely won't find at the larger carriers.

However, if T-Mobile loses the ability to offer competitive prices, it will have little to no chance at keeping up with its rivals. T-Mobile's decision to limit domestic data roaming may hurt some customers, but it will help keep prices low for millions.