Phandroid
Heads-up: Amazon Prime subscriptions getting price hike to $99 next week
It’s not often we get a lot of bad news from Amazon, so it tends to stand out when it happens. Unfortunately, today’s news affects Phandroid readers who use Amazon Kindle Fire devices (or use Amazon for shopping in general).
Amazon has formally announced plans to make Amazon Prime a bit tougher on your wallet, with the company increasing the full cost of a year’s membership by $20. Here’s Amazon’s quick justification of it all:
Even as fuel and transportation costs have increased, the price of Prime has remained the same for nine years. Since 2005, the number of items eligible for unlimited free Two-Day Shipping has grown from one million to over 20 million. We also added unlimited access to over 40,000 movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video and a selection of over 500,000 books to borrow from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.
The change will go into effect next week for new customers, while those already on Amazon Prime will be charged $99 whenever their renewal date comes up (whether that’s tomorrow or a full year from now). We’re also hearing Amazon Prime Student customers will get a slight price bump as well, with the service going from $39 to $49.
It’s an unfortunate change, but considering the perks you get with Amazon Prime some may still find it worth the cost and hassle. Here’s the quick list of everything Amazon Prime affords you:
- Free 2-day shipping for all Prime orders
- $3.99 overnight shipping (per item) for all Prime orders
- Unlimited instant video streaming
- Monthly Kindle book rentals
When you consider all those factors, Amazon Prime might still be one of the sweetest deals in town for some. Regardless, we’re sure there will be many people unhappy with the change, so it’s up to you to decide if all those benefits are worth an extra $20 per year (which really amounts to mere pennies a day).
T-Mobile plans to upgrade all customers on 2G/EDGE to 4G LTE; defends network in new ad campaign [VIDEO]
The uncarrier has done it again, folks. On the company’s 1-year anniversary since launching their 4G LTE network, Magenta has announced plans to bring everyone still on 2G/EDGE up to 4G LTE. T-Mobile says 50% of the upgrades will be completed by year’s end, while the project should be “substantially complete” by the middle of 2015.
More than that, T-Mobile is also expecting to begin work on loading up their new 700MHz A-block spectrum with 4G LTE once their acquisition of the spectrum is complete. T-Mobile’s work on catching up with the big boys has been impressive enough, with the company able to get 210 million customers in over 270 markets lit up with the super fast data in under a year.
T-Mobile’s also looking to “fight back” against claims that their network isn’t up to par with the big boys. They’ve announced a new marketing campaign that will serve to educate customers on just how strong their network is.
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They specifically called out Verizon’s catchy, humorous ads of asking street-walking consumers what they thought each coverage map of competing carriers looked like. Answers in those ads range from “it looks like a duck” to “some sort of finger painting,” before those customers eventually come to Verizon’s coverage map and confidently point out that it’s a map of the United States.
T-Mobile has boldly requested a cease and desist from Verizon, but not before letting loose their own ad that began running on TV last night. You can view that ad in the YouTube embed above.
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