Prepaid iPhone coming to Virgin Mobile USA by July - report
Sprint's Virgin Mobile USA will become the second American carrier to offer Apple's iPhone without a service contract, according to a new report.
Virgin Mobile's addition of the iPhone to its product lineup will be announced later this week, according to MarketWatch. The iPhone will debut on Virgin Mobile as soon as July 1.
The deal could go toward the $15.5 billion in iPhones Sprint has committed to sell over a four-year span. The company pledged to buy the iPhones last year in a deal that brought the iPhone to Sprint, which is the third-largest carrier in the U.S.
Last week, it was announced that Cricket Wireless would become the first prepaid carrier to sell a contract-free iPhone in the U.S. on June 22. Cricket will offer the 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S for $500 along with an "unlimited" $55-per-month plan.
But Cricket will only sell the iPhone in smaller markets where the brand is available, while Virgin would make the iPhone more widely available to prepaid customers. The Virgin service, which uses Sprint's network, covers 278 million people.
The price for a prepaid iPhone through Virgin was not revealed, but the carrier has prepaid plans that begin at $35 a month for "unlimited" capped data. Tuesday's report said it was "unclear" whether the iPhone would be compatible with those plans.
Apple began expanding the iPhone to regional carriers last October with C Spire wireless, while more were added in April and again in May of this year.
Virgin Mobile's addition of the iPhone to its product lineup will be announced later this week, according to MarketWatch. The iPhone will debut on Virgin Mobile as soon as July 1.
The deal could go toward the $15.5 billion in iPhones Sprint has committed to sell over a four-year span. The company pledged to buy the iPhones last year in a deal that brought the iPhone to Sprint, which is the third-largest carrier in the U.S.
Last week, it was announced that Cricket Wireless would become the first prepaid carrier to sell a contract-free iPhone in the U.S. on June 22. Cricket will offer the 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S for $500 along with an "unlimited" $55-per-month plan.
But Cricket will only sell the iPhone in smaller markets where the brand is available, while Virgin would make the iPhone more widely available to prepaid customers. The Virgin service, which uses Sprint's network, covers 278 million people.
The price for a prepaid iPhone through Virgin was not revealed, but the carrier has prepaid plans that begin at $35 a month for "unlimited" capped data. Tuesday's report said it was "unclear" whether the iPhone would be compatible with those plans.
Apple began expanding the iPhone to regional carriers last October with C Spire wireless, while more were added in April and again in May of this year.
Comments
Sweet !
That leaves very few North American providers without the iPhone. Certainly an advantage over any of the Android manufacturers who seldom have one of their models available at more than a couple of telcos.
Hooray! VM has been my ONLY cellphone provider since I first joined them in 2005 because I'm a light user.
But I'd really like to have a smart phone that had iPhone features and was capable of holding a SIM card that
would work abroad.
No word yet from VM but I'll post anything I hear unless I see it here first
Elsewhere says '2.5 GB cap before being throttled.' That's almost as good as AT&T's 3GB. AT&T is going to have to seriously kiss my butt to keep me for the next iPhone.
Hi, does anyone know if this phone would be technically different from Sprint's iPhone. I mean, Would a sprint iPhone be able to be activated on VM?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
The price for a prepaid iPhone through Virgin was not revealed, but the carrier has prepaid plans that begin at $35 a month for "unlimited" capped data. Tuesday's report said it was "unclear" whether the iPhone would be compatible with those plans.
I just wanted to point out that this isn't a compatibility problem, it's a greed problem. Will Virgin allow the iPhone to use that same prepaid plans that all other prepaid phones can choose from, or will they be forced into a higher priced iPhone plan?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 7600/132
I just wanted to point out that this isn't a compatibility problem, it's a greed problem. Will Virgin allow the iPhone to use that same prepaid plans that all other prepaid phones can choose from, or will they be forced into a higher priced iPhone plan?
I'm betting higher priced plan that also includes forced data.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdcat
Hooray! VM has been my ONLY cellphone provider since I first joined them in 2005 because I'm a light user.
But I'd really like to have a smart phone that had iPhone features and was capable of holding a SIM card that
would work abroad.
No word yet from VM but I'll post anything I hear unless I see it here first
Ditto. Please do let us know what you hear about this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
...The deal could go toward the $15.5 billion in iPhones Sprint has committed to sell over a four-year span. The company pledged to buy the iPhones last year in a deal that brought the iPhone to Sprint, which is the third-largest carrier in the U.S.
That's nice, I suppose Sprint can use a hand...
Last week, it was announced that Cricket Wireless would become the first prepaid carrier to sell a contract-free iPhone in the U.S. on June 22. Cricket will offer the 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S for $500 along with an "unlimited" $55-per-month plan.
...
Yeah, LEAP shareholders jumped with joy on the news.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elvis Guerra
Hi, does anyone know if this phone would be technically different from Sprint's iPhone. I mean, Would a sprint iPhone be able to be activated on VM?
You can use any Sprint phone including the Iphone on VM already, all you have to do is put the MEID of a VM phone on it.
I've been using a bad ESN Epic I got off of Craigslist for a 100 bucks on the $25 plan for over a year and half now.
Thanks for the response. Is changing the IMEI legal? I was told its not. How would you even go about it?
Thanks for the response. Is changing the IMEI legal? I was told its not. How would you even go about it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elvis Guerra
Is changing the IMEI legal?
No.
Thank you, thats what I thought
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
No.
Yes and no, it's a gray area at best.
The law says you can't have 2 phones with the same number (clone), you can't do it to steal others info, hijack another account (theft of service), or commit sellers fraud (sell a stolen phone with a modified meid to pass it off as legit).
If you own both phones and destroy or erase the info from the original, and never sell the phone with the modified meid like I'm doing, the law becomes cloudy at best. Nobody to date has been taken to court for what I've done, so the law has never been fully interpreted by the courts yet.
In the state of California and a few others it is illegal to change or remove a SN from anything, whether you own it or not. So in some states it's illegal no mater what, but I don't know if federal law would trump state law in such a case.
According to the law you can for sure if you notify the FCC and the manufacture of the change.
If you notify VM of this they will suspend or cancel your account because it does break the user agreement where it states that you can only use their phones and they can not be modified (rooted or jailbroken).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chrispoe
Yes and no, it's a gray area at best.
Yes, to clarify, it's not necessarily illegal to do it, there's just no legal use for a device after you have done it.
It's like what jailbreaking is close to becoming, to use another example.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Yes, to clarify, it's not necessarily illegal to do it, there's just no legal use for a device after you have done it.
It's like what jailbreaking is close to becoming, to use another example.
The example I hear from most people is car VINs, but most people don't seem to know you can legally change those too.
Wow its a too good news, i was not aware with this information.
Thanks to share such good news.
It's now official: http://www.virginmobileusa.com/
I wonder if the iPhone will continue to do as well when the subsidies that have hidden the price difference between it and android phones is no longer able to be hidden? We see in places where prepaid is the norm that Apple simply doesn't do as well. China, Eastern Europe, etc where the population is more price sensitive.
On Virgin Mobile right now, the most expensive available Android phone is $300. If this follows the Leap deal, it will be $500. I'm glad Apple is going prepaid and I'd really like to see them push through something with Straight Talk but I just hope they can keep their margins up when wandering into a market where it is less about subsidizing higher cost equipment with plans and more about the bottom dollar.