It’s no secret that T-Mobile has been struggling as America’s number four mobile carrier for some time now.

First, there was the deal with AT&T, which failed miserably but got T-Mobile some cash and spectrum rights. More recently, there was the acquisition of MetroPCS, which shored up T-Mobile’s LTE footprint. And this month, the company says it wants to finally get in bed with Apple—a longstanding sore spot with its potential user base (myself included). As of 2013, T-Mobile will finally be selling some Apple products on its network, although unauthorized iPhone users have been on their network for some time now.

But this week brings renewed attention to another revelation made during Deutsche Telekom’s (T-Mobile parent German company) Capital Markets Day in Bonn, Germany. There, the company unveiled its plan not only to sell Apple devices, but also to entirely eliminate carrier subsidies on new phones. That means if you buy a smartphone, you’re paying full price for it. T-Mobile will allow new customers to bring their own phone, or buy a new phone and pay for it all at once or in installments. But everyone will be shepherded into what the company calls its Value Packages.

As Digital Trends points out, T-Mobile's new gamble is going to be to show users that its deal, when spread out over two years, is better than its competitors'.

"As a baseline, a T-Mobile Value plan with unlimited voice, unlimited messaging, and 2 GB of 'high speed' data runs $60 a month," the site wrote. "Over 24 months that rolls out to $1,440. Verizon charges $100 a month for a roughly equivalent plan ($2,400 for two years), AT&T is $85 a month (for just 1 GB of data a month; $2,040 for two years), and Sprint is $80 a month ($1,920 for two years, although voice is limited to 450 minutes)."