U.S. telecom giant T-Mobile seeks to one-up competition with a new Simple Choice family plan on December 10th that provides unlimited data to everyone, albeit on "limited time."

The carrier said the base plan begins at $100 per month for two lines with unlimited voice and text, plus 5GB of data tethering per line thrown in.

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The plan is only half as many included lines as Sprint, but it is a better value if consumers are open to pay extra to uncap limits.

The big four carriers in the U.S. so far limit data on family plans except Sprint.

T-Mobile's offering at the moment only gives a person unlimited internet access. Even Sprint's $100 per month plan asks customers to split a preset amount of data with family -- not so good if Junior likes to binge on YouTube videos.

Things are better for bargain hunters, though.

T-Mobile's plan beats AT&T's and Verizon's, at least. The cost of similar plans from the two carriers begin respectively at $130 and $100 for 10GB of data on two lines and customers have to pay for more capacity and more lines.

There is a cheaper option, too. T-Mobile is coming up with a plan that gives four people 10GB of data (2.5GB each) from December 10th through 2015.

It is not quite as sweet a deal as Sprint's and the plan will cut access to 1GB of LTE data by 2016 but the carrier is counting on usual perks, like unlimited basic roaming, to sweeten the pot.

The new unlimited plan may just do it for many though -- it'll cost significantly more, but it's smarter if one or more of family members like to hog bandwidth. 

TagsT-Mobile Unlimited Data