T-Mobile Now Exempts 33 Streaming Music Services From Data Limits, Adds Apple Music

(kris krüg)

Last year, T-Mobile added a benefit for their customers that no other mobile provider had tried: data used for music streaming services doesn’t count against their data allowance. Since the launch, Big Magenta has taken suggestions from their users for new services to add, and now they’re up to a total of 33 services that are part of the program.

The latest, of course, is Apple Music, though its corporate cousins iTunes Radio was already part of the program. In their statement announcing the addition of Apple Music to the program, T-Mobile says that their customers stream a total of 131 million songs per day, or an average of 2.2 songs per person across their entire customer base.

T-Mobile offers theoretically unlimited but throttled data: if you use your entire quota for the month, your connection speed will slow to a crawl for the rest of the month. However, the exceptions for music services means that even if Instagram becomes unusable, you can still stream music at regular LTE speed.

Notably, the music service exemptions aren’t sponsored data: T-Mobile isn’t asking Apple or Spotify to pay them directly for the mobile data that their customers gobble while streaming music, which is similar to an idea that AT&T keeps revisiting.

T-Mobile adds free Apple Music cellular streaming, offers free next-gen iPhone upgrades to iPhone 6 buyers [9to5Mac]
Music Freedom List [T-Mobile]