T-Mobile announces launch of NB-IoT offering for $6/year for up to 12 MB per connected device, says it's roughly one-tenth the cost of Verizon's Cat-M plans
T-Mobile launched what it said is the nation's first narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) service plan for customers looking to provide connectivity to a range of devices.
Context & Ripple Effects
Verizon moved first on low-power cellular IoT, launching its nationwide Cat-M network in early 2017 with per-device data starting at $2/month and projecting hundreds of millions of connected devices. T-Mobile's answer is a price attack rather than a coverage race: a $6/year NB-IoT plan capped at 12 MB per device, pitched as roughly one-tenth of Verizon's Cat-M cost.
The move fits T-Mobile's established playbook of using headline pricing to force competitors' hands — the same approach behind its Simply Prepaid plans in 2015. With Cat-M and NB-IoT both aimed at small, long-lived devices like meters and sensors, connectivity for tiny data volumes is becoming a commodity the carriers are now discounting against each other.
First-order effects
- Device makers choosing between Cat-M and NB-IoT now face a roughly tenfold annual price gap on T-Mobile's network, shifting the default economics toward NB-IoT for low-bandwidth deployments.
Second-order effects
- Verizon's $2/month-per-device Cat-M floor is directly challenged; to defend its first-mover IoT base it must either cut entry-level pricing or justify the premium with its nationwide footprint.
Third-order effects
- If per-device IoT connectivity keeps collapsing toward near-zero prices, carrier revenue shifts from data fees to platform services — module certification, management tools, and bundling — mirroring how voice and text were commoditized before it.
The trend: Cellular carriers are racing each other's prices down on machine-grade connectivity, turning low-power IoT access into a loss-leader that funds higher-margin platform services.