- October 9, 2013 07:08pm EST
The company said it wants to tear down borders, and to drive this home, it has secured international pop star Shakira as its newest spokesperson.
The carrier also said that its 4G LTE network is now nationwide, covering more than 200 million people in 233 metro areas across the U.S.
With the new roaming plan, though, those who subscribe to a T-Mobile Simple Choice plan will be able to travel to dozens of countries without worrying about racking up a huge bill. It kicks off on Oct. 31, and does not require any sort of signup. Customers will automatically have coverage.
Free data and texting is valid in more than 100 countries, including Spain, Mexico, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, New Zealand, Taiwan, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Russia, Japan, and more. See the full list below.
"This is pretty much every country people travel to," T-Mobile CEO John Legere said during a Wednesday press briefing. "This covers 98-99 percent of where they go. It's [harder to] find out which ones it doesn't cover."
Legere insisted that it doesn't actually cost that much for carriers to provide their customers with service while overseas. Roaming charges, he said, are "a screw job" and are overly complicated.
The amount of money T-Mobile might lose by not collecting roaming fees, meanwhile are "not that big a deal," Legere said.
The carrier is also not that concerned that customers will now rush to travel, overloading the system. Legere said T-Mobile has modeled this up to 50x normal usage.
Don't expect to be streaming Netflix while lounging on the beaches of Barcelona, though. The option will only provide data at 2G speeds, and T-Mobile warned that it is not for those who plan to spend more than six weeks overseas. In any three-month period, at least half of data usage should be done in the U.S.
If you need high-speed data, T-Mobile offers 100MB for a one-day $15 pass, a 7-day 200MB pass for $25, or $50 for 500MB over 14 days. When someone lands in a particular country, T-Mobile will send a text message offering up the various plans.
Voice calls, meanwhile, will not be more than 20 cents per minute, T-Mobile said, while calls to landlines will be free in more than 70 of the partner countries. Stateside international talk and text is available for $10 per month.
"The cost of staying connected across borders is completely crazy," Legere said. "Today's phones are designed to work around the world, but we're forced to pay insanely inflated international connectivity fees to actually use them. You can't leave the country without coming home to bill shock. So we're making the world your network - at no extra cost."
For more, check out PCMag Live from Thursday, which discusses T-Mobile's new option.
