Virgin Mobile USA Goes 'Exclusively iPhone' With Unlimited Plan Priced at $1 for First Year

Wednesday June 21, 2017 10:06 AM PDT by Mitchel Broussard
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.

Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tag: Virgin Mobile
54 comments


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brian3uk
19 months ago
Cute idea but as long as its on Sprint's network then no thank you. I wish T-mobile would hurry up and buy Sprint and re-purpose their towers.
Rating: 8 Votes
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ecschwarz
19 months ago
Sprint's two prepaid brands (Boost and Virgin) always seemed redundant to me, so it's nice to see them actually doing something. I'm sure some anti-iPhone folks will hate this, and I'm curious if Boost is going to remain the general-purpose prepaid brand and Virgin Mobile will be a little side project (will current Virgin customers with other phones eventually be converted to Boost?)

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.
Rating: 3 Votes
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Andres Cantu
19 months ago
But even worse than Sprint's network is being at the bottom of it.
Rating: 3 Votes
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CarlJ
19 months ago
Ten years to go from, "one carrier has an exclusive to carry the iPhone," to, "one carrier is exclusively carrying the iPhone."

AT&T (née Cingular) was the only one willing to make a deal to carry it at all. Look how far we've come.
Rating: 3 Votes
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RadioGaGa1984
19 months ago
Even at a buck a month its still too much to move to sprints network.
Rating: 2 Votes
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Avieshek
19 months ago
But the iPhone Edition hasn't launched yet.
Rating: 2 Votes
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jent
19 months ago
You need to port in a number to qualify. Anyone know if this will work porting in from a Google Voice number?
Rating: 2 Votes
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Derekuda
19 months ago

But even worse than Sprint's network is being at the bottom of it.

What does that even mean? Is that a knock at prepaid/MVNO's supposedly being "de-prioritized"? I really don't believe any of that's true. Even if it was true, does anyone really care about the speed of your download? I've been trying out Mint Sim lately which is an MVNO that runs on T-Mobile and it runs just fine. I streamed all of E3's press conferences on it and it never skipped a beat. (and this is out here in rual Idaho).
I really think all that "priority" speak is just meaningless marking talk to get you to spend top dollar.
Rating: 1 Votes
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Bryan Bowler
19 months ago
This is on Sprint’s network? They could offer to pay me $50 a month to get on this plan and I would tell them to pound sand.
Rating: 1 Votes
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Bawstun
19 months ago

"If you aren't using one of the big brands, you may not get top speeds. For instance, Verizon throttles other brands' customers to 5Mbps." -- http://www.pcmag.com/article/354110/fastest-mobile-networks-2017 (June 19, 2017).


Fake news, fear tactics. I regularly stream HQ Netflix off my devices and have never had interruptions or problems - and I've used Straight Talk, Cricket, and Metro PCS in the past. I regularly consume over 25GB monthly and have never experienced 'deprioritization' either. 5mbps if true, is still much more than you'd ever need for browsing, music, app download etc.
Rating: 1 Votes
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