Archive for category virgin mobile
Virgin Mobile Free Phone Service for Needy: Assurance Wireless
Posted by admin in virgin mobile on December 10, 2009
Virgin Mobile, which is now integrated with Sprint’s prepaid wireless business, will now be offering free phone service to some low-income individuals under a new brand called Assurance Wireless.
Read more about this at FierceWireless and see the press release here.
This service is now available in New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, according to Virgin Mobile, and will soon be available in other states as well.
Here’s what those who qualify for this service will receive:
Kyocera Jax Phone
200 minutes of local and long-distance per month
Free voicemail, call waiting, caller ID, and access to 911 (which is one of the true safety features of having a cell phone)
Additional talk time will cost customers 20-cents per minute, while additional text messages cost 15-cents.
My Take: I think this is a good thing since having a cell phone and ample communication is a quality of life issue due to how “connected” people are these days.
This program may help people in that it gives people access to emergency service (ie, 911) and hopefully can also be used to keep in touch after job interviews, etc.
Find the best deals on Straight Talk phones and plans at Wal-Mart.com
Virgin Mobile: Prepaid Mobile Broadband?
Posted by Derek in virgin mobile on June 11, 2009
It’s a concept that you think would have been executed in this fashion already, but it really hasn’t been until now. Most mobile broadband is via smartphones or pay for a small chunk of time hot-spots in coffee shops.
Virgin Mobile announced a mobile broadband plan today that’s pay-as-you-go, meaning you prepay for access using their wireless USB modem. Their prepaid cell phones have been pretty popular among the senior and low-cost “emergency cell phone” clientele, and now they are offering something that’s pretty similar in a slightly different market.
Plans start at $10 for 100MB that expires in 10 days, which is good for around 5 hours of web surfing, all the way up to $60 for 1GB that expires in 30 days. It’s not cheap, but great for people that don’t need unlimited web service at home, or who are on the road all the time and need the convenience of this sort of plan.
Sounds like an interesting offering from Virgin, but we’ll see how they compete with various companies soon that will be offering similar services.
Growth is Good: T-Mobile adds lots of new blood in 1st Quarter
Posted by Derek in Uncategorized, cricket wireless, t-mobile prepaid, virgin mobile on April 24, 2009
T-Mobile is learning the ropes when it comes to the prepaid industry. The sad fact is, it may be hurting their (much more profitable) postpaid side of the ledger. The latest numbers show a much greater leap in customers with prepaid than postpaid. With the economy the way it is, no huge shock there…the same thing happened the last two quarters.
This quarter though, the disparity of prepaid vs postpaid was even greater. 60% of their new customers in Q1 2009 were prepaid (415,000 total new additions this quarter, so the numbers weren’t as high as they would like, so it stings a little more).
So the question is: does T-Mobile believe in the prepaid cell phones business, or should they resist moving too far into this sector? Analysts believe they should embrace the prepaid model, as long as its working:
“We believe T-Mobile will have no choice but to match the new $50 level going forward – being priced twice as high as the market is not a viable strategy,” Moffett said in a research note. “And when that happens, the competitive dynamic of the unlimited pre-paid segment will be exactly where it was a few quarters ago … but with a lower price point. Whatever momentum Sprint has gained as a result of its Boost Unlimited offering will become much more challenging to maintain beyond that point.”
MetroPCS and Cricket Wireless offer their top prepaid plans at $50, so odds are T-Mobile will have to do the same to compete. Virgin Mobile joined the $50 parade too recently. It’ll be interesting to see how this race shakes out, given the price points being the same.
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