Ah T-Mobile, I knew your introductory pricing of $99 down payment wasn’t going to last. As of today, T-Mobile will ask well-qualified customers to drop $149 as their down payment instead of $99 as has been the case since the April 12th launch. I don’t recall anyone or anywhere telling me the $99 price was only good for one month, but in hindsight I should have seen the writing on the wall.

The iPhone 5 with eligible plan now increases from $579 to $629 as your total overall payment over 24 months. The 32GB and 64GB models don’t escape the price increase either as they move to $249 and $349 down payments respectively. That’s a $50 increase in the net down payment across the board leading to a $50 increase in the total cost over the life of the plan to $729 and $529

The monthly equipment installment doesn’t change thankfully from $20 over 24 months and it still allows T-Mobile to claim it’ still offering the most affordable upfront price available in the market.

The iPhone trade-in offer, which saw a slight uptick in marketing over Mother’s Day weekend continues as a way to allow customers with iPhone 4 and 4S devices hanging around to offset the upfront cost of upgrading to an iPhone 5.

Raising prices after an unknown promotional period…how very “UNcarrier.”