T-Mobile is upgrading its Jump plan introduced two years ago to allow subscribers to move to new smartphones more frequently than before. The new Jump On Demand option lets you lease a smartphone for a small monthly fee, then trade it in for a new smartphone up to three times per year at no additional cost. For example, a base model iPhone 6 would cost $15 per month to lease with Jump On Demand after trading in an eligible smartphone.
Without upgrading, leasing that iPhone 6 through Jump On Demand would carry the monthly fee for 18 months. Then T-Mobile will provide a purchase option, $164 in the case of the iPhone 6, if you choose to keep the leased device as owned.
The appeal of Jump On Demand, however, is the ability to switch between the latest smartphones as they launch. This is a much bigger deal in the Android space as more flagship devices are announced throughout the year, but an iPhone user wanting to switch between the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus or similar in the future might find Jump On Demand useful as well.
T-Mobile notes that its pricing on the iPhone 6, which is calls the industry’s lowest yet, is for a limited time. The carrier also says existing Jump customers can move to the new Jump On Demand plan the next time they upgrade.
T-Mobile says its new Jump On Demand option will be available starting Sunday, June 28th. You can read more about the new plan and all the fine print on T-Mobile.com. In the meantime, here’s a 2-minute video of T-Mobile’s CEO John Legere pitching Jump On Demand.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHJUyKU3YIQ]
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To recap, it’s basically a lease program on smartphones that many of us have been waiting for. T-Mobile understands the situation – hardly anyone wants to “keep” a smartphone forever, especially with all the advancements and the “next big thing” or the “new feature” that people want to have on the next smartphone.
So, instead of a 24-month equipment installation plan (EIP) with tax due at signing, it’s an 18-month lease with nothing due at signing, with an option to purchase the smartphone at the 18th month for the remaining balance. The remaining balance is not some astronomical or inflated number like a car lease either – it’s just the remaining cost of the original retail purchase price, like as if you were doing an EIP, but in reverse. If you don’t want to purchase it, simply hand your smartphone back in and pick out a new one, or you can simply walk away from T-Mobile altogether.
Considering that the average iPhone user only upgrades annually with Apple’s usual product cycle, and the average Android user upgrades 1-2 times per year because different Android manufacturers release their devices on their own cycles, the monthly 10USD cost from the old JUMP! program could now be offset towards the purchase of the smartphone.
If an average iPhone user upgrades every year with the old JUMP!, that’s 120USD spent, just for the service. The new JUMP! on Demand example of the 16GB iPhone 6 for 15USD x 18 months leaves a remaining balance of 164USD at the end of the lease. Money is better spent on the new program.
If anything, it’s a smart move on T-Mobile to make sure that you either pay for the device if you want to keep it, or it’s their passive way of keeping you on T-Mobile for at least another 18 months upon every upgrade.
I’m on a very similar thing here in the UK – O2 refresh. I pay £45 a month on a two year contract. £25 of that goes towards paying for the value of the phone, the other £20 goes towards my actual plan. At any point I can pay off the remaining amount left for the phone, and upgrade to a new one. In fact I just did that to upgrade to an iPhone 6. The remaining amount left on my 5S was £325 which I paid, et voila – new iPhone 6.
I do something similar with Sprint. I am leasing the 128GB iPhone 6 Plus for $93 per month with unlimited everything. I had previously been paying $85 plus the subsidized cost of the phone. I have the option to buy for $185 at the end of the lease. It will likely be worth much more than that when the lease is up.
Somebody get that girl some sunglasses! ;-)
Just as a point of reference from a Verizon customer on their Edge program (which is just now changing, again) …
An iPhone 6 16GB would cost me $2.08 per month to lease (that is $650/24 – $25/month credit for 10GB plan … we’re a 4-person family and need a big data plan). If we had a smaller plan the lease would be $10 more, or $12.08 per month. So over the course of the 24 month lease this iPhone would cost me $50 on my plan (but $290 on a smaller data plan).
With this new Edge plan, you can get a new device anytime you want, but you have to pay off the balance first. Sounds like a horrible plan, but you actually get to keep the device so you can sell it to recoup your losses. In the former Edge plan if you wanted to “Edge Up” you only had to pay off the balance of the Edge agreement (12 or 18 months, depending on which iteration of Edge you started with) but you had to surrender your device. Under the new plan, if I want a new phone I pay it off in full and own it, to do what I want.
So in the example above, if I keep the 16GB iPhone 6 for a year and want to upgrade, it would cost me $325 to buy out the balance, but I get to sell the iPhone. I surely wouldn’t get $325 for it, but since I only paid $2.08 for the 1st 12 months I’m only in it for $25, plus whatever I “loss” I sell the iPhone for (e.g. $325 payoff minus $250 resale price, or a $75 loss). In the end, the phone really only “cost” me only $100 for the 12 months I had it, or $8..33/month … not a bad deal in my book.
No, I’m not a shill for Big Red, just thought I’d throw in a different view from a Verizon customer.
$2.08? You mean because instead of being $40 per line you get $25 off because you’re on the 10GB plan and the phone is $27.08 a month and now your total is $42.08? That’s spending more than originally if you had a regular two year contract. The smarter thing to do is pay a bit up front and lower that monthly payment even more, say you put $100 down that’d lower the monthly cost to $38 a month which is cheaper than the original $40 line access fee. Also you’re not leasing you’re financing. But the sad thing about Edge is now its just another 2 year contract in disguise. When it first started you could upgrade once you paid half of the phone off, then it changed to when you paid 75% of the phone off and now it’s once you pay the phone off. Plus you can’t pay extra portions of the phone off a little at a time, it all has to be paid off at one time. With T-Mobile I paid a chunk here and there until I paid mine off in a few weeks. Also the fact that you still have to pay a line access fee, phone and data plan sucks. I have a plan with T-Mobile with 9 people. 3 of us have unlimited data, 5 have 2.5GB and 1 has 4.5GB with rollover data. We just pay for the lines and phone and that’s it. I have a 128GB iPhone 6 Plus that’s paid off and unlimited data and 5GB mobile hotspot and I pay $45 a month. This deal will be great for my brother and his wife. They pay $22 a month right now for their phones and only $19 for each line right now so this will lower their monthly cost $14 and they can upgrade anytime they want. Granted the price would go back to $27.08 but still they’d save a bit of money until they upgraded again.
“You mean because instead of being $40 per line you get $25 off because you’re on the 10GB plan and the phone is $27.08 a month and now your total is $42.08?”
That part’s correct. The $25 credit is applied to your monthly line access fee, not the lease, but in the end there really is no difference where the credit is going.
“That’s spending more than originally if you had a regular two year contract.”
That part’s not. The line access fee is $40/mo whether you’re on edge or a 2 year contract, no difference. With a 2 year contract a 16GB iPhone 6 costs $199 (plus $40 activation fee unless you’re a new customer). Setting tax aside, which is identical either way, a 2 year contract would cost me $240 but only $50 on my Edge plan. If I had a lower data plan where I was only getting $15/mo credit, then yes a 2 year contract would cost $50 less over the 24 month period than Edge.
uhm yeah, one catch, how are you going to get 3 iPhones a year, apple releases about once a year.
I had to pay cash for the entire purchase price of my phone, but then went on straighttalk, unlimited voice/text with 5gb of highspeed for their byod plan for $42.50+ tax if you sign for auto pay – and I use the AT&T mvno. They do both at&t and t-mo, but at&t is vastly better where I live for coverage.
So, just left t-mo after being their for years, they used to have an interesting 100 min/5gb high speed plan for $30 a month, but since I now have to use more voice minutes than that, t-mo’s current plans aren’t competitive with straighttalk.
absolutely loving my iPhone 6 plus, so great to be back, after using android for a few years.
1) Who is this plan meant for?
Who wants to replace their phone three times a year? Is this a common desire among Android users? This obviously has no appeal for iPhone users.
2) Where’s the analysis?
All of these cell phone plans seem intentionally designed to be complex, confusing, and deceptive. This post contains nothing to help a consumer decide whether or not it’s a good deal or how it compares to other plans from TMobile or other carriers.
3) Article or Advertorial?
Which brings me to question whether this is supposed to be a story or a paid advertisement posing as a story. Everything about the article says “advertising” and yet there’s nothing in the piece clearly identifying it as such. I get that advertising pays the bills and I also get that ad blocking is hurting your business model. But cramming ads posing as articles is intrusive and deceptive. You are betraying your users’ trust in order to get them to read some paid fluff, which more often than not represents a bad deal for consumers. This sort of practice makes me want to block your ads more, not less, and it makes me question whether your site is worth visiting in the first place.