It appears that the old saying, “there is no such thing as bad publicity,” holds especially true for T-Mobile. Although there has been a long string of recent negative T-Mobile news, a new consumer value perception survey, conducted by YouGov’s BrandIndex, puts the ‘uncarrier’ in a dead heat with Verizon at the top of the list:

Via
YouGov’s Brendindex

After a heated public spat that ended with BlackBerry cutting its licensing deal with T-Mobile, the carrier, it seems, has never been in better shape – at least in terms of perception. YouGov points to a few different possible explanations for the drastic upswing:

T-Mobile’s value perception with consumers has been steadily rising since the beginning of the year. Their ‘Uncarrier’ strategy has seen them unbundle services, eliminate service contracts and phone subsidies and offer free international data roaming…Also since the beginning of the year, smartphone users planning to switch mobile carriers in the next six months are increasingly naming T-Mobile, and to a lesser extent, AT&T, as their most likely choice for a new carrier according to YouGov’s CategoryView data. ¹

This is an incredible turn around. This time in 2012, T-Mobile ranked dead last in the YouGov BrandIndex customer perception index:

Via YouGov’s BrandIndex 2012

In just about two years, T-Mobile has gone from dead last in customer value perception to, essentially, being tied for first among the big four carriers.

Conversely, Sprint has had nearly the exact opposite two years. Sprint has gone from a close second, to being, far and away, the lowest ranked customer value perception. Perhaps this has something to do with their handling of long-time and unlimited customers.