Virgin Mobile has always positioned itself as a super-crazy-value carrier in the US, and that trend certainly continues with its latest plan option, "Totally Unlimited". The idea's about as simple as the name implies -- the MVNO hooks you up with unlimited calling at any time of day or night for a shade under $80 a month, which already positions it favorably against all the nationals and major regionals -- but the
coup de grace has to be the contract-free nature of the whole thing. When you sign up, Virgin doesn't want your soul for two years, and it doesn't even want your credit card if you'd prefer to pay your dues with a crumpled-up wad of cash every month (where you got that money is none of our business, after all). Unlimited text and pixture messaging can be added for another $10 monthly, which ends up pitting Virgin squarely against the $89.99 plan
offered by one of its corporate parents, Sprint (which doesn't actually own much of Virgin Mobile anymore, so we guess there's probably not too much love lost there). Look for Totally Unlimited to hit the streets on July 1.
posted Jun 24th 2008 8:00AM
Now AT&T (unlimited Voice, Not Data), T-Mob and Verizon please get on board!!!
We need unlimited everything for under $99 per month.
Agreed. It's 2008.
Sprint's Unlimited Plan at least includes everything. I just wish I liked Sprint..
So... this kind of plan is considered news material over in the states?
what the heck are you talking about?
where are there better deals?
what country are you in?
most countries I have seen don't come close to how cheap U.S. plans are! i don't know where you are, but I'm going to use Europe as an example. i have never ever seen a plan in Europe where you can call to or from anywhere in Europe for unlimited minutes per month with no roaming and no long distance charges for 50 Euros. not to mention color flip phones for as cheap as 6 Euros with no contract or rental fee.
now maybe im wrong about that and there are deals like that out there. so i'm very interested to hear from you about any such cheaper plans...
I'm resided in Sweden where these kinds of plans have been available for years and years. All major providers have €50 or €60 flatrate plans. Heck, some of them will even throw in a decent handset or let you choose from any available phone on the market (unlocked) with a €50-100 discount if you sign up for 12 months or more.
Example: €50 flatrate plan for 18 months will grant you a €100 discount on an unlocked N95 8GB.
After that you can call, message and surf with 7,2mbit hdspa till your head drops.
With the dollar taking a free fall 50 or 60 Euros equate to roughly $77 to $94 good ole US dollars. So who wins the argument? I see a draw here. Subsidizes for phone prices feels just like home. I do like the 18 months contracts though...
Considering salary generally is higher in Sweden, who wins the argument?
It’s not like a weak dollar due to crappy economy is a strong argument.
Sure our government are tax hogs, and every €50 includes €10 in government taxes. Still… I wouldn’t consider your new and ”awesome” plan (I love you britts for not using that word excessively) the dogs bollocks.
Then again, the Swedish market has always been a hard one to figure and competition has been fierce with a lot of weird deals.
For example, I’m currently using a prepaid service from my carrier. As I want to buy a new phone I just signed up for a 12 months contract, €10 á month and I can use the entire fee to make calls, send messages and send/receive data on their network. That’s a total €120 which I can use, no hidden fees. Sure, it’s not the cheapest minute price around but the funny part is this.
When signing up for this my provider will pay €120 on any new (unlocked) handset available on the Swedish market.
Oh yes, it's definitely time for at least AT&T. But knowing AT&T, more major-leagued carriers would have to adopt this stragedy first. This would be worth losing my 3,000 roll-over minutes, lol.
It's funny a prepay carrier has a better unlimited deal then AT&T or Verizon.
let me ask you this... if somebody offered you a plate of gold, but said you had to eat a similar plate of crap, would you do it?
bottomline is this: you can make the price super-low, and the features super-high, but when it comes to cellular it's all about coverage and customer service.
I don't know about customer service for Virgin, but I know that Verizon Wireless has top customer service ratings (majority rules on this point, folks). Also VZW has the best coverage area of any carrier in the U.S..
you do the math. I'll gladly pay more (and I have for 11 years) for better service and coverage.
Virgin has been on top of the prepay customer service levels for years now and Virgin runs on Sprint's network which has several roaming agreements with Verizon. So the playing field is leveled.
@Memo
on your word alone, I'll give that maybe Virgin's CS is good. however, I have to disagree with your saying that the playing field is leveled because they use the Sprint network.
I agree, verizon's CS has been steller in my opinion and 3 yrs experience with them