t-mobile, the only major carrier in the U.S. that doesn’t sell iPhones, can’t afford to shy away from an aggro advertising strategy. In August, Untethered.com got a hold of an internal memo to T-Mobile employees to aggressively “sell against the iPhone,” starting today. (The blog also noted the drawback in performance for iPhone users who switched T-Mobile’s network, as evidenced by leaked internal documents.)
Nevertheless, more than a million users are already using unlocked iPhones on T-Mobile’s network. To grow that number, earlier this month, the company launched its “unlocked and unlimited” campaign to encourage more iPhone owners to use T-Mobile’s cheaper plans instead. AllThingsD compared it to a BYOB party–where the alcohol is your iPhone.
Just as Verizon attempts to change the definition of the word unlimited, T-Mobile is touting the opposite. However, switching over could mean a return to the days of 2G, notes AllThingsD:
Its network isn’t yet all that iPhone-friendly given that its high-speed network has historically run in a band of spectrum not supported by the iPhone. T-Mobile is in the process of shifting around its network so that Apple phones can run at full speed, but for now, nearly all customers will be running at far slower 2G speeds.
Of course, that part wasn’t mentioned on this street ad that David Shapiro, Betabeat’s favorite smartphone fiend, noticed a outside the T-Mobile store in the Fulton Street Mall yesterday. Considering the amount T-Mobile invests in negging AT&T’s network, the only thing that surprises us is that they didn’t use a bigger font for “versus AT&T (T).”
