T-Mobile has launched a new calling plan under its “Project Black” marketing initiative, which T-Mobile is now referring to as “Even More.” The new calling plan will allow customers basic unlimited calling for just $49.99 a month, putting another nail in the coffin for the “bucket of minutes” model, where consumers pay for a set number of minutes each month and then get charged huge fees for going over.

As competition in the cell-phone industry heats up, cell phone carriers will continue to fight over price with the customer ending up the real winner at the end of the day. There have already been some smaller carriers such as Boost Mobile that have been offering affordable unlimited calling, but now T-Mobile is the first of the major carriers to offer an affordable unlimited non-contract plan.

European cell-phone carriers have already done away with contracts in large and are offering unlimited minutes to their customers. In Europe, you pay the full retail price of your phone and then pay a flat monthly fee without a long-term contract for the phone. American cell-phone providers are finally heading this route and consumers will no longer be tied to 24-month contracts for having their phone subsidized.

AT&T and Verizon are continuing to push contracts as they are still the core of the business model, but in order to prevent yourself getting tied down, a no-contract unlimited calling plan might be the way to go.

T-Mobile isn’t the only cell-phone company making waves in the industry now. Forbes recently had an article entitled “The $10 Phone Bill” which describes some of the trends in the industry. Forbes believes that Metro PCS will be one of the major carriers that will bring down cell-phone charges to much lower than they are now. Currently, it only costs Metro PCS about $16 per month to provide phone service to the customer and that’s continuing to drop as technology improves.