T-Mobile Discontinues Cell Phone Contracts: T-Mobile, the fourth largest cell phone carrier in the United States, just dropped all its contract plans and has moved to a pay-by-the-month becoming the first large carrier in the U.S. to do so. Cell phone users can now transfer their old phones to T-Mobile, or obtain a new phone from T-Mobile and pay a monthly fee for the phone for a certain period of time until the phone is paid off. However, cell phone users will also have the option to pay off their phones early, without penalty, and will be able to switch carriers or obtain new phones whenever they want to as of course there will no longer be a contract to adhere to. Monthly service plans are called “Simple Choice” plans and the entry level package costs $50 per month for unlimited texting and voice and 500 MB of data. Customers can also pay $70 per month for an unlimited texting, talking and data plan.
Here’s a link to a Ars Technica article titled After months of speculation, T-Mobile finally ditches cellphone contracts on the subject:
And another link to a New York Times article on the subject titled T-Mobile Unveils Aggressive Phone Pricing With No Contracts:
Mainstream Media Discusses The Television Revolution: I keep talking about the Television Revolution and how more and more people are streaming television shows and movies over the Internet and now mainstream television is beginning to cover this very cool story as it unfolds! More specifically NBC’s Night News offered a news story on Sunday regarding how the Netflix production of the hit Kevin Spacey series House of Cards is very popular. NBC also notes that when Netflix debut the first season of the series for its customers they offered the entire season all at once so eager viewers can have House of Cards marathons and watch the series in either one long weekend sitting or each night over the course of two weeks – basically they can watch all of the series whenever they want to. And that so called “binge” or marathon streaming of shows by television and movie fans is a large facet of the unfolding TV Revolution.
Here’s a link to the NBC video clip titled Netflix Changing TV
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/51312617#51312617
Have a great day!
Linda R.
References
Chen, Brian. (2013, March 26). T-Mobile Unveils Aggressive Phone Pricing With No Contracts. The New York Times. Online.
Farivar, Cyrus. (2013, March 25). After months of speculation, T-Mobile finally ditches cellphone contracts: Firm’s new plans start at $50/month for unlimited voice/texting and 500MB data. Ars Technica. Online.
Netflix Changing TV. (2013, March 24). Nightly News. NBC. Online.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 