T-Mobile CFO Explains Why They Can Afford To Pay Customers’ ETFs

As we had reported yesterday, T-Mobile had officially unveiled Uncarrier 4.0, the carrier’s latest move to entice customers from other carriers onto their network. One of the main selling points of Uncarrier 4.0 would be T-Mobile’s willingness to pay up to $350 to cover a customer’s early termination fees (ETF), along with up to $300 for a phone trade-in, basically giving a customer as much as $650 to switch to T-Mobile. Now $650 is no joke to a lot of people and based on feedback so far, you guys have agreed that it is pretty tempting, so if this goes off better than T-Mobile anticipates, wouldn’t they lose a lot of money in the process? Well as it turns out, T-Mobile does not think so.

Speaking to CNET, T-Mobile’s CFO Braxton Carter revealed that the carrier has already estimated that most ETFs that they would have to pay would average around $150. This is also because they expect more customers to be well into their contract by now, hence the lower ETFs, and they also expect that there would be instances where they might not have to pay anything at all. Speaking overall, the entire situation is viewed in a positive light and any financial burdens that might be placed at the start are expected to be recouped through customers remaining with T-Mobile and using their products and services.

Admittedly this sounds like a huge gamble for T-Mobile but like we said, $650 is definite no laughing matter and would definitely do its job at tempting more than a few customers over from rival carriers. What do you guys think? Will T-Mobile’s latest Uncarrier plan succeed?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: T-Mobile