T-Mobile announces Family Allowances Service

T-Mobile will launch its new Family Allowances service in August. This service allows parents to control how much money family members are allowed to spend on T-Mobile services on a monthly basis as well as control other aspects of phone use. they can limit the number of talk minutes, messages, and downloads (games, ringtones, etc) that a family member can access in a month.

A phone will still be able to access normally available "unlimited" features that the family plan might have access to, such as MyFaves or free mobile-to-mobile minutes.

A service can be completely disabled by setting its limit to 0, and the system also provides parents with a way to block voice and messaging to the family from specific numbers.

The service will go online sometime in August for $2 per month. T-Mobile has not said how long that introduction rate will be available, though.