• For Rio Rancho residents, T-Mobile is now a third choice of internet service provider besides Sparklight and CenturyLink.

 

Albuquerque and Rio Rancho area residents don’t have to cough up extra money or commitments just to have decent internet any longer.

T-Mobile is helping to make that a reality with an affordable monthly flat rate and an easy opt-in process, thanks to the 5G home internet service the wireless provider launched in April 2021. T-Mobile announced on May 4 its “Internet Freedom” initiative to make it easier for customers to break up with their current internet provider.

That monthly fee is  $50 for the duration of the membership, and T-Mobile is willing to pick up the cost for a customer who wants to break their contract early with their current provider. There’s also no price lock for the service, meaning a customer won’t have to commit to a set number of years as part of the contract.

“We know everyone is concerned about prices going up right now… We want to give customers the peace of mind that if they’re with T-Mobile, their price is not going to go up because they have price locks,” T-Mobile spokesperson Taylor Prewitt said. “Most internet providers will lock you into a contract for either a year or two years. For that first year, you get a promotional price, which can be really, really low and enticing. After that promo period is up, your home internet price skyrockets… Your price that you pay when you sign up is what we will commit to keeping your price at for as long as you’re a customer.”

T-Mobile will pay off an early-termination fee of up to $500. During this transition period, T-Mobile also offers customers a free 15-day “test drive” period for their internet service before they switch over.

The T-Mobile location at 4350 Ridgecrest Dr., Unit A2, in Rio Rancho has a free 15-day trial for up to 500 contract buyouts. If you like it or want to continue, the monthly cost would be $50, and there’s no starting fee.

Prewitt said markets like the Albuquerque metro area are “saturated by cable players” with not-so-great customer experience reputations due to things like price hikes and data caps.

T-Mobile’s goal with launching this 5G home internet service was to make it similar to its wireless phone services, meaning a flat rate every month with auto pay, with no extra taxes or fees.

“You don’t even pay for the equipment,” Prewitt said. “The equipment is included. It’s all self-installation. You can basically get connected in just a few minutes.”

For Rio Rancho residents, T-Mobile is now a third choice of internet service provider besides Sparklight and CenturyLink. Customers in the City of Vision who want to switch to T-Mobile for internet service can stop by the Ridgecrest Drive location or the T-Mobile offce on Unser Blvd. at 701 Unser Blvd SE, Ste 14 or visit t-mobile.com.

“This is a service that we know that people desperately need. People are desperate for an alternative to their landline, old-school broadband providers, especially in more rural areas where they either have had no option or have had pretty poor options for a long time,” Prewitt said.

Prewitt said T-Mobile’s required to do an address check to make sure there’s enough available capacity to serve each address, adding service is allocated on a home-by-home basis.

“I had an instance last week where somebody moved about six blocks to a new address. Their old address was eligible, but their new one was not… It’s definitely at a home-by-home level,” she said, adding prospective customers should check with T-Mobile ahead of time to see if their new address is eligible for 5G internet.