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T-Mobile expands reach of data rollover program

Letting you roll over the data you don't use by the end of the month, the carrier's Data Stash program will be available to Simple Choice prepaid customers.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney
3 min read

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T-Mobile is rollout its Data Stash program to more subscribers. T-Mobile

T-Mobile prepaid customers with a Simple Choice plan will soon be able to carry over their unused data.

Data Stash lets you roll over any unused data from month to month, in effect giving users a bonus after a month of light usage. Launched in January, the program was previously available only to Simple Choice postpaid customers -- those with higher credit scores who pay at the end of the month. But starting Sunday, March 22, Dash Stash will begun rolling out to Simple Choice prepaid customers, T-Mobile Chief Marketing Officer Andrew Sherrard announced in a blog post Monday.

"Every single one of our prepaid voice customers with a qualifying Simple Choice plan will start out with a Starter Stash with up to 10 GB of 4G LTE data. And when that's all used up, they'll start rolling forward their unused data for use up to a full year. Automatically...and at no extra charge," Sherrard said.

T-Mobile's new move is designed to thwart rivals, such as AT&T, which also kicked off a Data Rollover plan following the introduction of T-Mobile's Data Stash. But AT&T's plan has certain limitations. For example, any rolled-over data not used during the rollover month goes away within the next billing period. As such, Sherrard touted T-Mobile's Dash Stash plan for its ability to roll over your data for a full year and said that AT&T's option was "not a serious response."

AT&T last week suggested that it may be less willing to play the promotions game, dishing out discounts to win over bargain hunters. "We won't chase customers net additions for the sake of another account," AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said at an investor conference. "We're going to be smart about it."

Both Stephens and, a day earlier, Verizon's CFO indicated that the overall pace of promotions had eased up after a rough-and-tumble holiday period.

T-Mobile has been on a tear the past couple of years offering promotions and discounts designed to win new customers and steal subscribers from the competition. Introduced in 2013, Simple Choice offers you unlimited talk, text and data, including 1GB of 4G LTE data, starting at $50 a month. Other options provide more data for an additional charge. In his blog post, Sherrard boasted that 27 percent of T-Mobile customers with Data Stash have already tapped into the program to roll over unused data.

The promotions offered by T-Mobile have often prompted the other carriers to fight back by cooking up their own discount --which takes a toll on the revenue and profit for the mobile carriers. But T-Mobile vows to continue the fight.

"Frankly, I'd love to see the carriers do something serious here, because we are on a mission to change the wireless industry for the better for every American," Sherrard said. "Maybe the carriers will wake up when we unleash our latest Un-carrier move on them later this week. But to be honest, I won't be holding my breath."

T-Mobile has a press event scheduled for Wednesday in New York.