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T-Mobile Netherlands Offers One Day of Unlimited Data to All Customers

T-Mobile Netherlands Offers One Day of Unlimited Data to All Customers

Operator T-Mobile Netherlands is offering all its consumer subscribers, both prepaid and postpaid, one day of unlimited mobile data. The offer is designed to underline the operator’s top ranking in the Ookla Speedtest.

Postpaid customers may sign up online for the special offer, while prepaid customers need to send an SMS to a short code. For customers who are currently on an unlimited data plan, T-Mobile is holding a prize giveaway, in which customers can win concert tickets, gift vouchers and portable phone chargers.

Tarifica’s Take

We find this data giveaway interesting because of the reason for it. Rather than simply trying to promote a new plan or service, T-Mobile Netherlands is granting all subscribers free unlimited data as a way of advertising the superlative speed of its network. And rather than just telling users about it by touting the numbers returned from the Ookla Speedtest, T-Mobile is using an innovative experiential approach, encouraging users to really put the network through it paces, no holds barred, for one day.

As for the facts themselves, T-Mobile Netherlands was ranked as the fastest mobile network in the country in the latest results from a test conducted by U.S.-based web service Ookla. T-Mobile registered the highest download and upload speeds in the study, which was based on over 454,000 tests conducted in the Netherlands in Q2 and Q3 this year (The tests rely on consumers measuring their network speeds from an app on their phones.) T-Mobile’s total speed score was 63.77, with an average download speed of 69.96 Mbps and an average upload speed of 17.08 Mbps. KPN ranked second with a speed score of 4.55, Tele2 was at third 42.68 and Vodafone came last with a score of 33.67. Not only was T-Mobile well ahead of its rivals in the Dutch market, but results published in August by Ookla show that its network is the second-fastest in the entire world, after Norway’s Telenor.

Now, this is all quite impressive, and T-Mobile has every right to be proud of its network. We think that offering all users to experience the way that network performs when asked to handle very large amounts of data is an excellent way of demonstrating its capabilities. One desired result of the unlimited-data day would be for those users who are on lower-allowance plans to upgrade to higher-data plans. Related to that, prepaid users could decide to go postpaid. And, of course, aside from the idea of switching plans, all users could potentially be impressed by the data speeds they experience, and that would tend to boost up customer loyalty and satisfaction.

One caveat, though, is that the unlimited-data giveaway would be even more effective if it could be experienced by all Dutch smartphone users, not just T-Mobile’s customers. If the operator is trumpeting the results of this test, which names it as having a network significantly faster than those of its rivals, a chance to sample it could cause many people to switch over to T-Mobile. If it were possible for an operator that can boast better speeds than its competitors to do this, it could be a “killer app” in terms of customer acquisition.