Your Cheap T-Mobile Plan Price Is About To Go Up: What You Need To Know

T-Mobile subscribers who have been enjoying their cheap grandfathered plans are getting a rude awakening. The carrier has started notifying some of its oldest customers that their bills are going up, and the increases could be significant for those with multiple lines. The good news is that if you haven't received a text message from T-Mobile alerting you to the rate increase, you won't be affected in this round.

A memo from T-Mobile consumer president Jon Freier framed the price hike as a necessary consequence of inflation. "As costs continue to rise, for the first time in nearly a decade we’re making small adjustments to the prices of some of our oldest rate plans," Freier said. The change will reportedly affect a small part of T-Mobile's customer base. The new rates should be reflected on bills in June. 

According to The Mobile Report, Simple Choice, ONE, and even the relatively new Magenta plans are going up between $2 and $5 per line. The older the plan, the more likely you'll see the full $5 per line increase. Some of these plans still have limits on messaging and data, which could make the new price unpalatable. That's probably T-Mobile's goal, though. It has been aggressively pushing to get customers on its newest Go5G plans.

It's unclear what rationale T-Mobile has used to decide who's getting the rate increases—there are many subscribers on these plans that have not gotten rate increase messages. However, this might be just the first wave of rate increases for older plans. The carrier is also reportedly raising rates on some of the Sprint customers it inherited from the acquisition, which reduced the number of cellular carriers from four to three.

T-Mobile has offered several price lock promises, like the Un-contract initiative in 2015. Accounts covered by these guarantees won't be affected, but not all customers from those days are covered. T-Mobile limited the price lock promises to select plans or new activations, giving the company more latitude today.

With its acquisition of Sprint now firmly in the rearview mirror, T-Mobile doesn't have a smaller national carrier with which to compete. Its sights are set on AT&T and Verizon, and that probably means higher prices are going to become the norm for the magenta network. Even if your grandfathered plan isn't affected by this wave of price hikes, it's probably only a matter of time.