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Virgin Mobile USA Goes 'Exclusively iPhone' With Unlimited Plan Priced at $1 for First Year
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It's not just cellular tower deprioritization that MVNO/prepaid customers endure which mostly occurs on congested towers at peak hours.
MVNO/prepaid customers often do not receive many of the other benefits as postpaid customers including (but not limited to): international calling/messaging, higher data limits, access to WiFi hotspots, tethering, Visual Voicemail, WiFi calling, call handoff.
It's not just about the speed of downloads.
I've used MVNO and prepaid services for years using both AT&T and T-Mobile towers. I get enough out of my current T-Mobile prepaid plan despite their poor coverage than AT&T in my area (SF Bay Area), but it works enough to the point where I am not compelled to consider other service.
Much as you might believe that cellular companies are magnanimous in their doling out of user benefits, sadly it is not true.
I have T-Mobile Prepaid (the $35/mo. 100 min/unlimited msg/unlimited data plan). I do not have Visual Voicemail. I get 100MB of tethering. I have no access to T-Mobile WiFi hotspots, no Wi-Fi calling, no international calling built into my plan, etc.
Over the years, T-Mobile has add some incremental improvements for prepaid customers, but by no means does it match what postpaid customers get. At one point they added the ability to take calls while traveling in Canada and Mexico for no additional charge. Prior to that, I was relying on WiFi to make VoIP calls using Google Voice.
When I had the $45 StraightTalk service a few years ago, no Visual Voicemail, no international calling/texting, no tethering at all, no WiFi hotspots, no WiFi calling.
I don't get a five-page bill, just a couple of text messages that my credit card has been charged and I'm good to go for another month.
If you don't believe me go ahead and switch to a prepaid plan or MVNO. The list of bennies is much shorter.
Hey let me ask you this. Not that I have a dog in this fight as I asked the original question.
But with the amount of money you save on your bill, are missing the above benefits really a hang-up?
Visual voicemail i could be fine without, Tethering I never use, international calling is never used (and honestly why wouldn't you just skype someone when it's free as I don't think any carries give FREE international calls) Paper bills are just more trash to fill your garbage can. free Wifi is EVERYWHERE yet never seen a tmo wifi spot. The canada/mexico thing would be an added benefit if I ever someday visit canada but as it currently stands not a deal breaker.
honestly, the only benefit I would need is Wifi-calling as my office is in a steel framed building.
Personally, I feel like the savings outweigh any benefits hands down.
Yeah but T-mo just got a lot of low band spectrum and could implement that on their "new" Sprint towers without having to sacrifice exiting antenna or build new towers. Sprint also has some low and mid bands that wouldn't hurt T-mo to have. Faster deployment and more towers = better coverage faster. I'm not usually big on reduced competition but with the pace of wireless innovation the faster carriers can update and expand their technology the better. If TMO scoops up Sprint's assets, that would benefit both carriers subscribers.
Sounds like you're on a crappy MVNO. I have Cricket. I pay $55 and have unlimited LTE (currently on my 31st gig), visual voicemail, free Canada and Mexico international calling and texts, and, if I wanted, I could reduce my plan and add tethering.
Prepaid has come such a long way since they first began tackling the market. Many offer almost all of the benefits provided to postpaid.
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When you say 'my' 7 Plus, does that mean you were able to bring your own? I was under the impression it had to be a newly purchased device.
I almost fell for this! Glad I read the comments because I didn't know how horrible this network would be. WHEW!
The main point to take away is that people place different values on different telephony features.
Missing those additional postpaid benefits is not a problem for me, but I'm only speaking for myself. Some people would rather have them. For them, having a postpaid plan with a large array of benefits is worth it to them.
As for using Skype, that requires the call receiver to be running Skype. That doesn't always work so well, like if I am trying to call a restaurant to make a reservation. Yes, I could pay for SkypeOut and international rates, but that's not free anymore, is it?
I use Google Voice's VoIP for international calls, the rates are pretty good but sometimes the audio quality is an issue. I also have a TruSIM but the outgoing international call rates fluctuate wildly based on where you are calling from and where you are calling.
Free WiFi is harder to find today than it was five years ago as many people have wizened up and added passwords to their routers (which now often ship with security enabled and default passwords). And often, free WiFi doesn't work even when advertised, including right here in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Again, it's about the individual and what you place value on. Would I like those additional benefits? Sure, but at this point in my life, I do not feel compelled to pay for them. However, for some people they do.
Do I get less as a prepaid T-Mobile customer than a postpaid T-Mobile customer? Unquestionably, the answer is yes. However, do I get enough in my minimal service offerings to make my monthly bill worth it? Yes, but that's a personal decision. It doesn't work for everyone.
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Yes, I was able to bring my iPhone 7 Plus that I had purchased at my local Apple store on June 8th. I also ported my number from Sprint - porting your number from another carrier (any carrier qualifies including Virgin Mobile) is a requirement for this promotion. The Virgin Mobile Inner Circle rep handled everything over the phone when I called them today. I was even able to use the same Sprint UCCID SIM card that I was using with Sprint.
So far, I have noticed three downsides - there's no Wi-Fi calling, no visual voicemail, nor mobile hotspot. I had Wi-Fi calling, visual voicemail, and mobile hotspot with Sprint. I'll miss them, but I sure won't miss Sprint's $78/month for 2GB of service. $45 for 2GB data, add an additional $25 for talk and text, and add in the taxes and Sprint's other fees. What a rip-off. Add another downside - data is slower than molasses. I hope it gets better. Maybe it just needs time to provision.
I must admit, at times, when I was on Sprint, I was getting 60-70 Mbps. I'll see if I get those same speeds with Virgin.
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So Virgin is essentially charging $1 + $100 premium for the phone... a 64GB iPhone 7 is only $649.99.
Deprioritization may not matter much (or be especially evident) in rural Idaho; but it definitely does matter and it can be much more noticeable in a major metropolitan area where MVNO customers are sharing towers and bandwidth with many non-MVNO customers.
So Virgin is essentially charging $1 + $100 premium for the phone... a 64GB iPhone 7 is only $649.99.
With free phone service for a year, that is savings of $600. Minus the negligible taxes.
So Virgin is essentially charging $1 + $100 premium for the phone... a 64GB iPhone 7 is only $649.99.
I bought my SIM-free, unsubsidized, without-a-carrier iPhone 7 Plus about two weeks ago at the Apple store, and I paid Apple's regular price of $869 (I didn't pay a $100 premium) for the Jet Black, 128GB iPhone 7 Plus. And, it still qualified for Virgin Mobile's Inner Circle $1 promotion.
Speaking as someone who used to be on virgin mobile, I can tell you that you are wrong. It might be great in rural Idaho, but if you tried using your phone around the metropolitan Los Angeles area you'd have a much different opinion. At a baseball game with lots of people? Forget it. At Disneyland? Good luck, you'll need it to even get on social media. What good are cheap rates if you literally cannot use your phone when you are out and about? I dumped Virgin, switched to T-mobile and never looked back.
lol @ everyone hating on Sprint. Cheapest pricing and best Unlimited plan and have had zero issues with service or reception anywhere. It isn't 2005 anymore.
I can’t speak for the other haters but personally Sprint sucks in and around the Walt Disney World, and Orlando areas. My coworkers come to me for Apple help all the time, and the biggest complaints come from Sprint customers. Half a mile from the tower and they struggle to get more than 10Mbps while my Tmo phone is 40+ and ATT is 20-30. During heavier tourist weeks they get next to nothing while others are fine. It may not be 2005 anymore but they sure wouldn’t know it.
Cricket (which I use) supposedly limits their speed to 8mpbs.
I can stream top-setting Netflix and download large files, apps, all day long and it's quick and smooth. Very fast, a few seconds and they're done.
Why on earth would anybody need higher than 10mbps for a phone??? After a certain point, broadband is broadband. Do you really notice the 5-10 second difference on 100MB files???? I mean...really...
I'm on H2O wireless, $36 per month with auto-pay, no other taxes or fees, for unlimited calls/texts and 8GB data.
I don't get Visual Voicemail, WiFi calling, tethering, MMS, or FaceTime over cellular. I don't miss the first three. I rarely get voicemails. Coverage of AT&T towers are good at work and home. I feel the need for tethering maybe once a year. Lack of MMS support means I cannot send messages to multiple people if some of them are not iPhone users. That is annoying. Every now and then, I need to use FaceTime when I am out and about, so that is also something that bothers me. (Aaand, customer service is a slow online chat, ugh)
I could see myself paying $40 or $45 a month to get those features back, but I cannot tell whether prepaid plans of AT&T includes taxes and all those other invented fees.
Maybe especially prepaid should offer one phone. This will eliminate much need for customer service and streamline things for their company. I can only imagine the nightmare of customer calls they would receive for their budget Andrpid devices, and the number of replacement phones sent out whenever they were unable to solve the problem.
By choosing Apple, they're going to increase customer satisfaction (as iPhones rarely malfunction and are reliable, easy to use) and will save millions on customer support. Makes sense to me. At least in theory...
It will be interesting to see how it works out. Has there ever been a precedent for this?
It's only $600 if you value their service at $50 per month. Considering you can already get unlimited Sprint service for 1 year free already
https://www.sprint.com/content/sprint/sprint_com/us/en/shop/offers/free-unlimited.html
I put the value at $0.
You should speak with friends and family who use the Sprint network in areas that you expect to be in.
I'm on BoostMobile, my wife is on VirginMobile (both Sprint MVNO's) (we both have iPhone SE's) and our experiences have been terrific. In our area, Verizon has the best, but Sprint is perfectly acceptable. We travel across the country and have always had great service.
We've saved a boatload of money on their no-contract plans and deep discounts on iPhones. Do yourself a favor and research it firsthand. You may indeed find out that it is bad in your area... but it might not.