T-Mobile’s corporate palette now includes some green to go with its trademark magenta: The prepaid T-Mobile reseller Mint Mobile is officially property of the Bellevue, Wash., carrier. T-Mobile announced Wednesday that it had completed its acquisition of Ka’ena Corporation, the parent firm of Mint; Ultra Mobile, another reseller more focused on international service; and Plum, a wireless solutions provider. T-Mobile had estimated this transaction would cost $1.35 billion when it unveiled its plans for the purchase in March 2023, but Wednesday’s release did not cite a final price. The FCC signed off on the transaction last week after T-Mobile committed to unlocking phones sold by Mint and Ultra Mobile after 60 days on the network.Mint got more attention than other MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) in part because actor Ryan Reynolds bought a share of the company and became its regular pitchman. (He stands to make about $300 million from the deal, according to early estimates.) But it’s rates also seriously undercut what T-Mobile charged its own subscribers for access to the same 5G network.Mint, however, requires customers to pay in advance to get its best deals. So its advertised $30/month rate for unlimited 5G is better thought of as $360 a year, with the added restriction that mobile-hotspot use on that plan is capped at 10GB a month.PCMag readers found that proposition appealing enough to vote Mint the top wireless service in our 2022 Readers’ Choice awards, then rank it third in 2023 and 2024 behind two other resellers, Consumer Cellular (the top pick in 2024) and Google Fi (first place in 2023).
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T-Mobile’s announcement pledges continuity, saying Mint and Ka’ena’s other brands will “continue to operate autonomously but closely aligned to the broader T-Mobile brand and business, similar to T-Mobile’s successful acquisition of MetroPCS in 2013.”The carrier also outlined a set of new perks for Mint and Ultra customers:A “$15 Commitmint” (sorry!) to Mint customers to keep offering a $15/month plan—a footnote specifies that “rate plan features may vary”—and to continue Mint’s current promotional deal of three months of its unlimited data plan for $15 a month.T-Mobile will bring its scam-call screening to Mint and Ultra customers soon.Mint customers will soon gain free talk and text and 3GB of high-speed data roaming in Canada.Ultra customers visiting Mexico will soon pick up “an enhanced data roaming option” (no footnote clarifies that) on top of the voice and text roaming that most of its plans already include.
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