Virgin Mobile Unveils New High-End Plan

Virgin Mobile has unveiled a new calling plan option. For $99.99, users will get 1,000 minutes per month. This is considered a high-end option for Virgin Mobile, which is an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) on Sprint. Virgin Mobile targets the youth market with pre-paid and pay-as-you go plans without any contracts. Virgin Mobile’s previous highest plan was $69.99 for 600 minutes. The two plans above include unlimited nights and weekend. Since Sprint is providing the services for Virgin Mobile, night and weekend minutes start at 7 PM for both plans.

Sprint, Cingular, and Verizon all have $100 per month plans for 2,000 minutes. The difference with Virgin Mobile is a contract is not required. Virgin Mobile still has the lowest per-text messaging plan at $0.05 per message, with costs going down to $0.01 per text message when purchasing 1,000 messages. Sprint, Cingular, and Verizon just raised their per-text messaging plans to $0.15; however, Sprint and T-Mobile are the only carriers to have an unlimited text messaging plan. Sprint’s unlimited text messaging plan is $10 for individual plans and $20 for family plans, where T-Mobile’s prices are $15 for individual plans and $20 for family plans.