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T-Mobile blasts AT&T for copying phone upgrade plan

T-Mobile CEO John Legere introduces "Jump," the company's new device upgrade program. Now T-Mobile is giving AT&T an earful for its similar "Next" plan.
(John Minchillo / AP Images for T-Mobile)
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In a move rarely seen in the tech industry, T-Mobile is criticizing rival AT&T for coming up with a new phone upgrade plan that is similar to what it introduced earlier this month.

AT&T on Tuesday introduced “AT&T Next,” a plan that lets customers upgrade their smartphones once every 12 months. Users get their phones with no down payments or fees, and pay for them on a monthly basis (payments range from $15 to $50 depending on the device).

The new plan drew comparisons to T-Mobile’s “Jump” plan, which lets customers upgrade their devices twice per year. That plan works by having customers make a down payment for their phone (normally $100), pay their device’s monthly payment (normally $20 or $25) and pay an extra $10 per month for the upgrade plan.

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“What AT&T announced isn’t a strategy; it’s a reaction to our Un-carrier moves,” T-Mobile said in a statement.

T-Mobile went on to criticize AT&T’s plans and said its own plan was superior (a claim AT&T, of course, refutes), but the move is notable simply because in the monkey-see, monkey-do world of tech, rivals rarely call each other out when one imitates someone else’s new feature.

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Facebook, for example, is one of the biggest culprits. Earlier this summer, it added video recording to Instagram after Twitter’s Vine gained popularity. Facebook created the Poke app after Snapchat gained a massive following a few years ago. And it added the ability for users to “check in” at a location, similar to Foursquare’s location-based app.

Apple has also drawn from features that others have introduced. A year ago, it touted its 4-inch screen for the iPhone when such screens had been out for years. And earlier this summer, it added a new feature to iOS called Control Center that many others including rival Samsung have had on their phones for years.

Imitating rivals has long been the norm in the fast-changing, highly-competitive technology industry, and being first hasn’t always been an advantage. More wireless carriers are likely to come out with phone upgrade plans to counter T-Mobile’s pioneering move.

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