On Thursday, Sprint announced that the iPhone would soon be made available on Virgin Mobile USA, its prepaid plan service.
“The cost will be considerably less than the fees contract customers pay monthly to use an iPhone — once you get past the upfront price of the phone itself,” details The New York Times.
Customers who opt for the prepaid plan will buy the phones for $650 (4S) or $550 (4 or older), “but the baseline $30 monthly fee includes 300 minutes, unlimited data and unlimited text messages. By contrast, AT&T and Verizon no longer offer unlimited data plans, and their contract customers pay upward of $90 a month to use an iPhone,” according to NYT.
Virgin Mobile is not the first prepaid service to announce it will offer the iPhone. It follows Leap Wireless’s prepaid service, Cricket.
Why the sudden offerings on prepaid services? “Tero Kuittinen, a mobile analyst and vice president of Alekstra, a company that offers services to help phone customers lower their monthly bills, has a theory,” notes the article. “He said he had heard from smaller carriers that Apple was upset with the expensive plans offered by Verizon and AT&T. By making the iPhone available with cheaper plans, it hopes to put pressure on the big carriers to cut their prices, he said.”
On Thursday, Sprint announced that the iPhone would soon be made available on Virgin Mobile USA, its prepaid plan service.
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