Virgin Mobile intros a blank-slate smartphone plan you can customize any way you like
Virgin Mobile's new prepaid plan can be anything you want it to be from a bare-bones emergency calling service to a custom unlimited Facebook plan. — Next month, Virgin Mobile USA will offer a new …
Context & Ripple Effects
Virgin Mobile USA had already used no-contract mobile offerings and, in 2010, outlined unlimited prepaid mobile broadband at $40 a month. Sprint broadened the prepaid menu in March 2014 with smartphone options that omitted data entirely.
The new plan places those endpoints on one customizable ladder: customers can retain basic calling or pay for unlimited access to selected social services. Its broad same-day pickup shows that app-specific prepaid pricing had become a notable carrier proposition.
First-order effects
- Virgin Mobile USA can sell prepaid service to both low-use customers seeking basic connectivity and smartphone users who value unlimited access to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest.
- Customers gain an alternative to a single all-purpose data allowance, with the trade-off that unlimited use is tied to selected services rather than general mobile data.
Second-order effects
- Sprint's no-data prepaid options face a closer comparison with Virgin's configurable entry tiers, while its higher-use customers have a route to add service-specific unlimited access.
- Prepaid rivals such as Verizon must distinguish fixed data-bucket plans from offers that make particular apps effectively unlimited for subscribers who prioritize them.
Third-order effects
- If carriers continue to price data by application as well as by volume, prepaid competition shifts from a small set of monthly buckets toward modular plans tailored to distinct usage patterns.
- That model gives prominent mobile services greater importance in carrier plan design, because inclusion in an unlimited option can shape which services are cheapest to use.
The trend: U.S. prepaid carriers are moving from uniform talk-text-data bundles toward segmented plans built around how subscribers actually use mobile data.