Virgin Mobile Becomes An iPhone-Exclusive Carrier And Offers One Year Unlimited Service For $1
Earlier this month, Sprint unveiled a promotion that offered one year of unlimited service for free if you switched from a competing wireless carrier. It now looks as though Sprint’s prepaid arm, Virgin Mobile USA, is offering a similar promotion; although the prepaid service will cost you $1 for a full year of service.
Unlimited talk, text, and data would typically cost $50 per month, but the new Inner Circle program will for a limited time offer you the $1 pricing. Similar to the Sprint promotion, you will have to pay the taxes on the service, and you must sign up for AutoPay in order to avoid paying a higher rate. Customers must sign up for Inner circle by July 31st in order to take advantage of the promotional pricing and your monthly rate will revert to $50 per month once your year of discounted service ends.
Inner Circle is also more restrictive than the aforementioned Sprint plan. Video streaming is capped at 480p resolution and music streaming is limited to 500 kbps. In addition, your data speeds will be throttled once you cross the 23GB threshold during your billing cycle. Unfortunately, mobile hotspot doesn’t appear to be included.
In order to qualify for the service, you need to purchase a new iPhone from Virgin Mobile or Apple, and port your phone number. If you decide to purchase a phone direct from Virgin Mobile in order to take advantage of Inner Circle, the iPhones SE, 6, 6S, 6S Plus, 7, and 7 Plus are currently offered.
As you’ve no doubt clearly noticed, there are no Android phones listed. That’s because Virgin Mobile has also announced that it will become an iPhone-exclusive carrier. From this point forward, the prepaid carrier is focusing all of its energy on Apple in a bid to remake itself in the cutthroat wireless market.
“Virgin Virgin Mobile worked with Apple to become the newest mobile carrier to sell its service in Apple stores and at has always looked to shake things up and challenge the status quo in any sector we go into,” said Virgin Group Founder Richard Branson. “Mobile is no exception and with Virgin Mobile USA, we’ve now worked with Apple to create a compelling offer for our new Inner Circle plan.
“Simply put, when you buy an iPhone you will get the highest quality device and service plus access to an array of Virgin experiences and offers with our group of companies. I’m excited to share that we are changing the way you experience mobile.”
In addition to the discounted service, Virgin Mobile will also offer the following perks to Inner Circle members for a limited time:
- A round-trip companion ticket to the United Kingdom on Virgin Atlantic
- One night’s stay at Virgin Hotels
- $170 savings on an introductory offer to Virgin Wines club
- Up to 20-percent off flights on Virgin America
- 20-percent off on the Virgin Sport San Francisco Festival of Fitness (Oct. 13-15)
Those are discounts that would make even T-Mobile’s John Legere blush, and are indicative of the “at all costs” methods that carriers are using to court customers.
