None of these plans have a contract, they're month-to-month:

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans

After your contract is over, you are technically off-contract.

In the past T-Mobile has also offered customers the ability to have a monthly plan that didn't require a contract. I'm hoping that they keep that around.

From the article:

> T-Mobile will have to explain to customers that they will actually save money over the length of a two-year contract by paying a lower value plan rate.

So it sounds like they're still locking you in to a contract at the start. Yes, once the contract is over then you're off-contract, but if I'm not on Tmo already that doesn't really help.

Yep that's what I've been doing.

If you own the phone you can just do a prepaid arrangement. They just bill you at start of each month for the coming month of service.

(I have T-Mobile, Nexus S, $70/mo for voice/sms/5GB data)

I'm not sure about what's offered right now to new customers, but for me once the original contract expired I didn't renew it and instead of getting phone "upgrades" I got a cheaper "loyalty" plan and I've let that run for years.

But yes, you are correct. If you sign up for a value plan you're on contract. They're subsidizing rates not phones in this case.