T-Mobile lets customers get free upgrade to next iPhone, lock in $15 monthly fee

T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) is partnering with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) for its latest "Un-Carrier Amped" move and is letting customers who upgraded to a new iPhone 6 at a cost of $15 per month in device fees keep that price and swap the old phone out for the next iPhone for free.

In a blog post, T-Mobile CEO John Legere also wrote the carrier is adding Apple Music to its list of 33 streaming music services that customers can use without incurring data charges as part of its "Music Freedom" initiative. The moves are the latest and last part of T-Mobile's wave of "Un-carrier Amped" announcements this summer, which have been intended to tweak and amplify previous offers the carrier made to its customers.

The first of them was the introduction of "Jump! On Demand," which lets customers lease phones, pay a monthly device fee and upgrade to a new phone as often as three times every 12 months. When the program was announced in late June, T-Mobile said customers could get a 16 GB iPhone 6 for $15 a month with Jump On Demand when they traded in their current smartphone, which is lower than similar offers on monthly installment plans from other carriers.  

"Now, every single customer who gets a new iPhone 6 this summer as part of this deal can simply swap it for the next iPhone, if they upgrade before the end of the year," Legere wrote in a blog post. Legere said that customers will not need to change their monthly payment and will not need to pay a deposit or fees--and they can keep paying the $15 per month on device costs.

Legere said every customer who already got an iPhone 6 for $15 per month automatically gets the new deal. New customers who want the offer can sign up through Labor Day (Sept. 7) in participating T-Mobile stores nationwide. 
 
T-Mobile also said that everyone who buys a new iPhone 6 with Jump! On Demand will get "exclusive priority access to the next iPhone."  

"That's right. If there's a new iPhone this year, you're first in line," Legere wrote. "When you order your upgrade during the first 48 hours it's available, we'll give your order priority and ship it first, along with others who qualify for priority access. So you'll be among the very first to get your brand new phone when we have inventory."

In terms of Music Freedom, Legere noted that since June 2014, T-Mobile has expanded the number of services covered under the program from seven to 33. He wrote that Music Freedom currently covers 95 percent of all music streamed on mobile devices in the U.S. T-Mobile customers now stream more than 131 million songs every single day, Legere said, up 275 percent from a year ago.

Earlier this month, T-Mobile launched its "Mobile without Borders" offer, under which T-Mobile will let customers make calls, texts and use data as they do in the U.S. when they travel to Mexico and Canada. 

The carrier also unveiled a new family plan that offers each customer unlimited voice, texting and 10 GB of data, and includes a monthly price of $100 for two lines. However, the new offering dislodged existing family plan promotions that doled out unlimited voice, texting and LTE data for two lines for the same price. Under the new plan, each additional line beyond the first two costs $20 more per person.

For more:
- see this T-Mobile blog
- see this CNET article

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