Trump Mobile: New US mobile operator is not a price breaker

A new virtual mobile provider is causing a stir in the USA with its brand: Trump Mobile, similar to Google Fi, has leased into three different mobile networks in the country. This only has to do with Donald Trump insofar as one of his companies has licensed the name “Trump” and collects license fees for it. In addition, Trump's sons are advertising the offer, certainly not for God's reward.

The real provider is called T1 Mobile LLC. It offers a single tariff for the market launch. At just over 47 US dollars per month plus taxes and fees, the offer is not necessarily cheap. In addition to unlimited domestic calls and text messages, it includes 20 GB of data per month (after which bandwidth is severely restricted at no extra cost), international calls, cell phone insurance, access to a telemedicine platform and a limited breakdown service. The telemedicine platform promises to be able to issue prescriptions for just 125 different medications.

Trump Mobile is explicitly aimed at “the hardest working people”. As this target group is all too often not creditworthy, Trump Mobile advertises that it does not carry out credit checks and does not impose any contractual obligations.

Golden cell phone

Trump Mobile markets calls abroad as a special honor to military personnel and their families. Calls from the USA to some countries incur no additional costs (including Germany and the People's Republic of China), for other countries it depends on the destination (Austria's landline network can be reached free of charge, but calls to Austrian cell phones are limited to 30 minutes per month), other countries are generally limited (for example 5 minutes to Tuvalu or ten minutes to Cuba).

The T1 Phone is due to be launched in the summer. The gold-colored Android smartphone will cost 500 US dollars net. Trump Mobile has not yet revealed the manufacturer and chipset. The option to expand the memory with an SD card and the headphone socket are real selling points, but do not justify the price in themselves. It remains to be seen whether the promised 12 GB RAM is really 12 GB RAM or partly virtual RAM. The device is “proudly designed and manufactured in the USA”, claims the Trump organization.

This is unlikely, as the corresponding infrastructure does not exist in the USA. Presidential son Eric Trump has since admitted that this part of the announcement is not true. “One day, all cell phones will be able to be made in the United States of America,” he said.

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