Say hello to GoSmart Mobile, a brand new ______ operated and trademark licensed to T-Mobile USA. I’ve intentionally left a blank space in the sentence before because I’m honestly not sure what this is… It’s not an MVNO in the traditional sense. It’s a prepaid carrier, that much looks clear, and ownership records tell us that Deutsche Telekom used a “Corporation Service Company” to trademark the name in the US. So, we know this is owned by Deutsche Telekom, operated by T-Mobile and trademarked under T-Mobile, but what is it?
As of this writing, the www.GoSmartMobile.com website doesn’t load, and we’ve been told that a soft launch could happen as early as tonight. We’ve also found what appears to be the Twitter feed for it @GoSmartMobile. The feed is empty, with not even a proper avatar yet.
It appears that this could be a situation like Sprint and Boost Mobile. T-Mobile seems to have created what is known as a “fight brand” that it will use to offer prepaid services. The plans are likely set up so T-Mobile can attack prepaid on multiple levels, with its Monthly4G under the T-Mobile name, and the secondary “fight brand” to offer various pricing tiers without licensing out to MVNOs. This would again be similar to the strategy Sprint has adopted with Virgin Mobile and Boost, both of which attack various pricing tiers and cover a wide array of prepaid pricing options.
So here’s our guess, based on the idea that GoSmart mentions it only uses the T-Mobile 3G network: T-Mobile will reposition itself as a premier value postpaid brand while using both GoSmart Mobile and MetroPCS to offer various prepaid options in the near future. GoSmart looks positioned to take on the lower end allowing Monthly4G and the future GSM MetroPCS lineup to offer higher priced and more feature rich prepaid options, including 4G network opportunities.
The $45 plan looks to be the only option for 3G services, with $35 and $30 levels operating at 2G speeds, which helps explain why this is a “bottom of the barrel” prepaid offering. Look for a possible soft launch this week and hopefully more details to arrive at the same time. There’s no word as to whether this will be sold out of T-Mobile owned stores or T-Mobile authorized retailers, which again leaves us waiting for more info before passing final judgment on this new prepaid entry.
Hat tip to Conan Kudo for the research and help!
