Keep Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’! T-Mobile's Data Stash Allows Customers To Rollover Unused Data

Remember back in the day when you actually had a fixed amount of voice minutes per month to use? Yeah, I know that some of you are still on fixed-minute plans, but most of us have moved on to unlimited voice/text/data plans. Companies like AT&T would allow you to “rollover” your unused minutes from one month to the next; so if one month you were a bit lean on your voice minutes, you could bank those minutes to use in the future if you found yourself bumping up against the “hard” voice minute limit.

Under the new Un-carrier 8.0 initiative, T-Mobile is applying a similar concept to mobile data. Instead of simply losing the tiered data that goes unused during a given billing cycle, T-Mobile will let you rollover that data to the next month (and the next month, and the next month).

T-Mobile says that it is “eliminating the infuriating wireless industry practice of confiscating unused data you’ve already paid for.”

Unused data from each billing cycle will go into what T-Mobile calls your personal Data Stash, and will be available to use -- whenever you need it — for up to a year. There’s also no limit to how much data you can put in your stash. And to make things interesting, the company is including 10GB of data for free into the Data Stash for every single line on a qualifying plan.

“Can you imagine your gas station siphoning unused gas from your car each month? The US wireless industry is even worse,” said T-Mobile CEO John Legere. “Americans have been gamed by the carriers into buying huge data plans – all to avoid getting screwed with overage penalties. Only to find out they bought more than they need which is then confiscated by the carrier. 

“That data is rightfully yours and we’re putting an end to this appalling industry practice today.”

T-Mobile’s Data Stash program kicks off in January and only applies to customers with a postpaid Simple Choice plan with 4G data LTE enabled (3GB and higher plans for smartphones, 1GB and higher for tablets).