T-Mobile’s John Legere has just announced Uncarrier 8.0, and it’s being called Data Stash. Basically, whatever 4G LTE data you don’t use from the data plan you pay for, you’ll get back to use on your next billing cycles.

The CEO cheekily referred to it as “rollover for data,” a nice nod to the rollover calling minutes trend that shook the wireless industry up way back when. Legere spoke about the travesty of customers paying for a set amount of data, but losing the unused amount at the end of each period as billing cycles reset.

The data can’t be banked forever — you have 12 months to use each bit of leftovers you didn’t get to eat each month — but that’s long enough to make us take notice and spark a degree of appreciation inside of us.

The program does require a Simple Choice postpaid plan with qualifying data of at least 3GB for smartphones and 1GB for tablets, so pre-paid customers need not apply. T-Mobile also stresses that this is available for any Simple Choice customers, whether they’re individuals, on a family plan or part of a business plan.

Here’s the full rundown on how it works:

Starting with your January bill cycle, Data Stash will be available to all T-Mobile postpaid Simple Choice customers.

postpaid Simple Choice customers. Sign up for a postpaid Simple Choice Plan with 4G LTE data for your phone (minimum 3GB 4G LTE data) or tablet (minimum 1GB 4G LTE data).

Use your data all month to stream, surf, and download worry-free.

At the end of the month, all your unused 4G LTE data – rounded up to the nearest megabyte – rolls into your stash to be used any time in the next 12 months.

To top that off, the company man revealed that they’d be kickstarting the program by giving everyone 10GB of data to play with on top of the amount they already pay for each month. That bucket of data won’t expire until the end of next year so you’ll have plenty of time to chew through it.

As many bold moves as T-Mobile’s made over the past couple of years, this arguably contends for the biggest yet. It’s something that makes a lot of sense and one of those things that makes you wonder why it didn’t happen sooner. All we can hope for now is that other carriers fall in line to make this an industry standard feature of subscribing to wireless service.

[via T-Mobile]

