T-Mobile Offers iPhone Tests and Unlimited Music Streaming

T-Mobile US, the fourth-largest American phone carrier, has spent the last year and a half introducing aggressive new offerings to lure customers. Most recently, the company said it would add to those offerings with unlimited streaming music and the ability to test-drive an iPhone.

The company’s moves have helped attract millions of people to T-Mobile. And they have also impressed federal antitrust regulators, who have publicly patted themselves on the back for resisting a potential merger between T-Mobile and AT&T in 2011.

Now, T-Mobile is in talks with Sprint, the third-largest carrier, for a $32 billion merger. A deal could be announced this summer.

William Baer, the chief of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, noted that the effect of regulators blocking the AT&T and T-Mobile merger was “driving enormous benefits in the direction of the American consumer.”

But John Legere, T-Mobile’s chief executive, said that innovation and competition would only intensify with a merger.

T-Mobile said that it had teamed up with popular streaming music services including Pandora, Slacker Radio, Spotify, Rhapsody and Apple’s iTunes Radio. Music streamed from those services will not be counted against a user’s data plan.

All T-Mobile customers subscribed to its current plans, called Simple Choice, will be eligible for the free streaming.

T-Mobile also said that it would introduce UnRadio, a new online radio service with Rhapsody. Unlike many traditional Internet radio services, UnRadio will be an ad-free service that allows people to listen to specific songs and skip others as much as they want. It will be free for customers subscribed to T-Mobile’s unlimited data plans and $4 a month for other T-Mobile customers.