T-Mobile execs took a moment to speak to CNET and discuss the initial reaction to their new Simple Choice/UNcarrier company. Andrew Sherrard, senior vice president of marketing and David Carey, executive vice president for corporate services stated that traffic in stores is up. “I have every reason to believe this momentum will continue and carry forward,” he said but Carey did admit its too early to gauge any real indicators right now.

T-Mobile declined to list the number of pre-registrations, though a leaked image to TmoNews shows that the company had more than 250K customers register early. The kicker is that more than 80% of those sign-ups were existing customers. Mind you that’s not pre-orders, but I’ve been told those numbers are already pretty impressive and close to the number of registered customers.

With T-Mobile’s decision to move away from the contract model, companies like Virgin Mobile aren’t wasting any time singing “hey look at us, we had no contracts first.” Responding to Virgin’s claim, Sherrard said that there wasn’t any need to respond to the attack or offer any similar promotions.

“We’re not worried about it,” he said. “Between the network, plans, and devices, we feel good about what we’ve got. There’s no need to respond.”

As for the conversation about how T-Mobile will tackle changing the mindset of the wireless industry customer long used to subsidized equipment, T-Mobile recognizes it’ll take time to slowly change that mindset.

“We realize this new construct would take a conversation,” Carey said. “We had to talk about how different it was, and where the benefits are. When something is new and different, it’ll take time for clarity to come by.”

CNET