Competition between mobile carriers is now so intense that they are not only trying hard to poach customers from each other, but even fighting legal battles over their tactics.
AT&T has sued T-Mobile over its EasySwitch tool, intended to allow customers to compare rates and receive a personalized deal from the self-proclaimed “uncarrier” …
The Wall Street Journal reports on the corporate battles.
Verizon’s “Bring Your Bill” campaign invites AT&T and T-Mobile customers to upload their bills or bring them in-store to get a counteroffer from Verizon. Last month, T-Mobile introduced “Easy Switch,” which asked AT&T and Verizon customers to share their login and password, then checked their rates with an automated tool and provided a personalized competing offer. T-Mobile’s new feature kicked off a technical cat-and-mouse game. AT&T twice implemented new security measures to block the tool, then sued T-Mobile late last month in a federal court in Texas. It alleged the Easy Switch tool intruded into AT&T’s computer systems and violated its terms of service “to harvest private customer account information and AT&T business information.”
Carriers also frequently file complaints about their rivals’ ads with the National Advertising Division (NAD), with the Federal Trade Commission finding itself pulled into one of these disputes.
The NAD referred T-Mobile to the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general for declining to participate in an NAD inquiry after AT&T challenged T-Mobile advertising from November 2024 that claimed superior 5G capacity compared with its competitors.
Now is a great time to seek a better deal
With carriers keener than ever to either acquire or retain your business, there’s never been a better time to seek a better deal.
It would be worth speaking to competing carriers to see what deal they are prepared to offer you, and then talking to your own carrier to see whether they would be prepared to beat it.
Once you have competitor offers, the best approach is generally to call customer services and select the option for cancelling your plan. This will connect you to a retention team whose job it is to try to persuade you to change your mind. I generally do this myself every year or two, and have each time received a significant discount on my existing contract.
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