T-Mobile

T Mobile are one of the top mobile network operators in this country and in my opinion they offer mostly a great service and seem fairly competitive in terms of pricing, allowance and what they offer within the network.

Within the contract tariffs they offer a few different options for you to choose from, and within those options you have even more options. I don't think T Mobile could be accused of not giving you much choice!
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...I will talk about, and is the one I have experience of personally. Within this tariff, you don't have a set amount of minutes and texts that you can use; instead you have an allowance amount (dependant on which tariff/how much you pay per month) and you can use your allowance however you like between minutes, texts, multi media messages and video calling - these all have a set price per minute/unit of usage and thus determine how your allowance gets ... more

T Mobile are one of the top mobile network operators in this country and in my opinion they offer mostly a great service and seem fairly competitive in terms of pricing, allowance and what they offer within the network.

Within the contract tariffs they offer a few different options for you to choose from, and within those options you have even more options. I don't think T Mobile could be accused of not giving you much choice!

Flext is the name of the first tariff I will talk about, and is the one I have experience of personally. Within this tariff, you don't have a set amount of minutes and texts that you can use; instead you have an allowance amount (dependant on which tariff/how much you pay per month) and you can use your allowance however you like between minutes, texts, multi media messages and video calling - these all have a set price per minute/unit of usage and thus determine how your allowance gets used. I think this is a fantastic way of doing things as it doesn't restrict your use at all, so long as you're on the right price plan for your usage.

Flext started off being 18 month only contracts, and for a short while offered both 12 and 18 month options (with the allowance being cut for the 12 month contracts) but has since gone back to offering just 18 month contracts. I'm not sure how I feel about this as I do get bored with my phones fairly quickly and after 12 months, I am usually ready for a new one, but I know that I would get less of a subsidy from T Mobile towards my new phone if this was the case too, and since time seems to be flying these days (as I'm getting older) I don't think the extra 6 months would drag *too* much!

Tariffs within Flext start at £25 per month (including a current offer they have on, that seems to be a long term offer) and go right up to £63, again including the offer I mentioned. These do not include any web use but for a bargain price of £5 per month, you can have the pleasure of adding on their web and walk package, which allows users to browse the web and use any other internet orientated services such as email, gps and some games among others as much as they like, without having to worry about the cost.

Obviously this is subject to a fair usage policy (which I believe is 1gb per month) but I don't think they're too strict with it, as long as you don't take liberties with it. I've heard of people using 3 GB by downloading files onto their phones that have not been pulled up about it, but maybe if this was to be done every month it may be a different situation.

Combi is the name of the next tariff that I will touch on. Obviously as I have never used this service, I couldn't explain the full ins and outs of it but it seems to be a more standard way of doing their tariffs and allowances in that they have a certain amount of minutes/texts (some plans are unlimited texts) per month rather than the freedom to choose how you use your allowance on a month to month basis. These plans start at £15 for 18 month contracts and £25 for 12 month contracts and go up to £36 (18 months) and £25 (12 months) per month for the top tariffs. Again, these do not include web use and this seems to be available for an extra £5 per month.

The final option is called Solo and is a sim only option, so you would have to provide your own phone. However by doing this, T Mobile gives you more allowance for your money per month than they would if they were also providing you with a phone. This is not a contract based phone as such, in that you don't have 12/18 month options; it's just a monthly rolling contract that I assume would be able to be terminated by giving a set amount of notice at any time, even if you'd only used it for one month. Prices start at £15 per month and go right up to £35 per month for this plan.

Both the Flext and Combi plans include some kind of subsidy towards a phone, and should get you a 'free' phone of some form within them.

My Experience With T Mobile:

I have been with T Mobile for over 4 years as a contract customer, and before that for a few years as a pay as you go customer. I will only be reviewing my time as a contract customer, as when I was on pay as you go; I didn't really have any dealings with them other than to top up credit.

The service I have had with T Mobile in terms of reception, connection and stability has been almost perfect for the most part. There have been times where the phone wouldn't make calls due to network problems but these have been few and far between if I am honest. The most problematic side of the service has been the internet and problems in loading pages and connecting full stop, but these are thankfully not too often and usually only last for short periods of time.

My relationship with T Mobile customer service has had its ups and its downs; usually when I've had problems, they have dealt with things in an acceptable manner and without *too* much drama but on some occasions I have had to escalate matters to customer relations, who are initially only contactable via email.

When contacting customer relations, be sure to put in your name, phone number AND your password in your email as it saves delay in them getting back to you as they will not start to deal with the issues you have without this, which means you can often wait another day or so to get the issue on its way to being resolved.

A good point with T Mobile is that it always seems to be UK call centres, and in a day and age where a lot of companies are outsourcing to foreign countries, the fact that they have not, is much appreciated by me. I have heard along the grapevine though, that they will be outsourcing *some* work to other countries but this is for pay as you go customers and not for anything that requires more than a standard conversation. If you have problems then it will be the UK that deals with it. I'm not totally clued up on this but I thought it was worth a mention from what I'd heard as the person I heard it from works for T Mobile.

Some of the problems I have encountered in my time with T Mobile include (but are not limited to):

Rude customer service agents when calling the call centre - I've had the phone put down on me a few times, never with any reason to do so as I am never abusive, and always as polite as possible, whilst still getting my point across. I always speak to others in the way that I would like them to speak to me, so to have somebody be rude to me, or put the phone down on me without reason is a big problem in my eyes.

Long queues - I've waited for countless hours in queues on the phone to speak to a T Mobile customer service agent, and have actually been hung up on before even getting to say a word after a 40 minute wait at one point. More recently I spent 2 hours in one day just in queues, and still didn't get my queries resolved.

Customer service agents that do not know anything, yet won't let me speak to a supervisor/manager or anybody else who may actually be able to help me; usually saying that there are no managers or supervisors there (even though later on they have admitted there are managers there but that they still can't (won't) put me through to them). This has often resulted in me saying goodbye and then ringing back, only to be put in a queue or be too late to ring back as they have closed for the evening.

Customer service agents who try to convince me I don't know what I am talking about - when I recently rang up to enquire about the release date of the MDA Vario IV, knowing it wasn't out yet I was told that it was out, but that it was called the Compact IV and out of stock. I knew for sure that this was not the phone I was talking about, and tried to explain the differences between the 2 phones but this agent was having none of it, and just continued to tell me that I was wrong and there was no such thing as a Vario IV.

Customer service agents lying to me to get me to renew my contract - I experienced this about 2 ½ years ago when I went through to customer retentions as I didn't feel I was getting a competitive deal compared to some of the other networks around. I was given the option to move to my current price plan and have 25% off for life, which suited me fine. The big problem was that they told me that internet was included in the plan, so I used the net and when I got my bill they wanted to charge me £30 for using the internet. I explained to customer relations that I had specifically asked the person who was dealing with the upgrade how much I would spend per month, so long as I didn't use any third party services like downloading games and ringtones and was told that it would be £26.25 per month. This was luckily all sorted out by customer relations at the time who added on the web and walk package at an extra cost, so now I pay £31.88 per month including VAT. It did take a few emails and then phone calls from me to sort it but they were very helpful so I did not mind; however this was not to be the end of the saga.

At the time that I was renewing, I was lead to believe this was a special offer for keeping customers, thus was not made aware that I would be changing from a 12 month contract to an 18 month contract; so when it came to 11 months down the line, I got in touch with T Mobile to talk about my renewal options, only to get a shock when I was told that I wasn't due for an upgrade for another 6 months!! Off I went again to customer relations explaining the situation, including the same persons previous errors that they had acknowledged and sorted, and telling them how I could only come to the conclusion that the person who had done my renewal had lied to me to get me to stay with them, and get the bonus for keeping me as a customer. I explained that had I been told that I would be on an 18 month contract, that I would have left and gone with another company for my phone as most were offering the usual 12 month contracts that I was used to/expecting, but at least I would have had the choice given to me. Again, after a lot of emails and a couple of phone calls this was resolved and an apology was given to me, along with the contract being put down to a 12 month contract.

Being told that texts and calls abroad would come out of my allowance but at a higher cost, yet when I used my phone abroad to text a few people I was charged on top of my tariff cost, even though my allowance would have more than covered it. This was sorted out quickly with a credit to my account by customer relations as they could see the note on my account by the person who had told me the information saying exactly what I had said.

I have to add, that all the times I have gone through to customer relations has been because I've had problems with the normal customer service agents not helping/being rude etc as mentioned above. I do not like complaining, and would not like to give that impression on this review, but I also stand my ground if I have been treated badly and know for sure/have proof that I am in the right.

I notice also that with T Mobile, what is being told to you can change from minute to minute. For instance I was told that the Vario IV would be out in October, but then when I got put through to upgrades I was told that there was no date in mind for it. When I decided to try the Omnia, I was told different prices to pay for the handset by different people, prices ranging from £100 to £180 at any given time. I was also told I could get it free if I changed my tariff to Flext 40 but then when I said ok, they didn't send the phone; when I rang to find out where the phone was I was told that I shouldn't have been told that price and that it would be £109 on Flext 40. I told them to forget it in the end and am still waiting to upgrade my handset, which leads me onto my next issue.

Recently T Mobile have not really been playing ball with regards to peoples upgrades as I have noticed on the what mobile website, and through my own experience that handsets seem to be commanding a much larger cost to the customer than they have in the past and I'm not sure why this is. I have been told that this is just for this quarter and things will change again in January, seems a bit odd to me to be honest though. When you look at the likes of Vodafone offering the Omnia and HTC Touch Pro (the phone the Vario IV is a rebranded version of) for free on the £35 per month contracts (and 12 month contracts at that), it certainly makes you wonder why T Mobile would be charging so much for their phones.

T Mobile are not very quick at releasing the new phones, due to testing apparently; this wouldn't be a problem if they weren't so secretive/unknowledgeable about when the phones would actually be released so that I would have an estimate of how long I'd need to wait to get the phone I wanted. They don't seem to mind leaving customers hanging indefinitely when it comes to upgrade time, which is odd as you'd have thought they'd at least give a rough date as to when the phone might be out as they risk losing customers doing it the current way.

The phone I am talking about in particular is one I have mentioned in this review already (the Vario IV) and whilst I know they have to test it and rebrand it (as it's originally a HTC handset), it would be nice for them to be a bit more forthcoming with a date. It makes matters worse that T Mobile Netherlands and Germany both released the phone about a month or more ago! I know there are thousands of people in my position because I started a blog about it (http://vario-iv-4.blogspot.com/) after a phone call with T Mobile head office where I've had a trickle of information given to me by somebody I've managed to speak to in the directors office there; the blog has had just under 4000 unique hits.

All in all though, they're not a really bad company and I do feel quite loyal to them as they're usually quite good at sorting problems… although I'd prefer less problems to have to sort out. I think it's possibly a case of better the devil you know, as I could always move to another network and have just as many problems, or even worse ones/more of them. This is why, even with all the problems I have mentioned, and more I am still giving them a fairly decent rating I do think they deserve it at the time of writing this and there are certainly much worse companies out there; in the next month or so things could change due to me still needing to upgrade, so I will update if there's any more to report on, or any change in my rating.

Again, I've rambled on but I hope I've given a fair representation of this company and hope that my information is of some use to somebody… anybody haha! I know there's probably loads I've missed off about the company, but I thought it important to explain some of the more prominent problems I've encountered and how efficiently I feel these problems have been dealt with. 

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