Virgin Mobile USA is moving to an iPhone-only business model beginning June 27, and to entice customers to switch it's offering an entire year's worth of unlimited talk, text, and data for $1.
Called the "Inner Circle," the unlimited plan is available until July 31, and only to customers who purchase a new iPhone and transfer their phone number to an Inner Circle plan. After their first year on the plan, users will switch over to the normal $50/month price tag.
There’s iPhone. And then there’s everything else. At Virgin Mobile, we’re teaming with Apple to offer you nothing but the world’s most popular phone. Because life in the Inner Circle is about living big, expanding your horizons and pursuing your passions. And it starts with an iPhone you’ll adore. Pre-order your iPhone now, or head to an Apple Retail Store on June 27th to be one of the first members of the Virgin Mobile Inner Circle!
Currently, Virgin Mobile offers a variety of iPhones in all storage capacities, including the iPhone SE (32GB for $279.00), iPhone 7 (64GB for $749.99), iPhone 7 Plus (256GB for $969.99), and others. The iPhones are up for pre-order on the Inner Circle plan today, and will ship on June 27, with the plan going into effect upon the iPhone's activation.
The unlimited Inner Circle plan does have restrictions related to data throttling, becoming "deprioritized" in some areas after exceeding a certain data cap, and even risking service termination after specific amounts of off-network roaming are reached. Per the fine print on Virgin Mobile's website:
- Plans are domestic only and include unlimited data, talk, text, 800 domestic voice roaming minutes and 100MB domestic data roaming.
- Customers who use more than 23GB of data during billing cycle will be deprioritized during times and places where the network is constrained.
- To improve data experience for the majority of users, throughput may be limited, varied or reduced on the network. Virgin Mobile may terminate service if off-network roaming use in a month exceeds: (1) 800 mins or a majority of mins.; or (2) 100MB or a majority of KB.
For an additional $5/month users can gain unlimited calls to Mexico and Canada, and unlimited worldwide texting. A $10/month bundle includes everything in the $5/month tier with unlimited calls to landlines in 70+ countries, 200 minutes to "select mobiles" in 200+ countries, and reduced per-minute rates to over 200 locations. A full list of countries and details on the international plans can be found here.
Check out Virgin Mobile's website for information about iPhone protection plans, member benefits, and more.
Top Rated Comments
AT&T (née Cingular) was the only one willing to make a deal to carry it at all. Look how far we've come.
It's real easy to bash their network and how desperate Sprint as a whole feels right now, but I've got to give them credit for trying something new…sort of reminds me of T-Mobile's early uncarrier events.