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T-Mobile expands its free streaming music plans

If you call yourself the "uncarrier," you better do something different.

 

Taylor Hatmaker

Tech

Posted on Aug 27, 2014   Updated on May 30, 2021, 5:00 pm CDT

When you’re the underdog, why not make your own rules? T-Mobile announced that it will continue support for its special “Music Freedom” initiative, which exempts many streaming music apps from counting toward a subscriber’s data cap. Starting today, the carrier has added six streaming music services to the stable of apps spared from LTE data overage fees: Rdio, Songza, Grooveshark, AccuRadio, Black Planet, and Radio Paradise. 

The new apps will join Spotify, iHeartRadio, iTunesRadio, Pandora, Rhapsody, Samsung Milk, and Slacker on the carrier’s all-you-can-hear data buffet. T-Mobile introduced the plan earlier this year at one of its “Uncarrier” events.

According to T-Mobile, subscribers are now streaming 5 million more songs a day compared to numbers prior to the Music Freedom plan’s launch. Some critics have rightfully raised concerns that giving one form of data a special status—in this case, making streaming music data free—sets a dangerous precedent that flies in the face of net neutrality, but for now, T-Mobile subscribers aren’t complaining. The carrier stated that it plans to add Google Play Music later this year, but don’t expect to see Apple-owned Beats, cozy with AT&T from the start, showing up any time soon.

Illustration by Jason Reed

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*First Published: Aug 27, 2014, 2:36 pm CDT