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Virgin Mobile's pre-paid MIFI spotted, purchased, unboxed, and photographed
Sure, Virgin Mobile's MIFI isn't due out until Monday -- but that hasn't stopped one lucky shopper from finding one on the shelves of his local Best Buy yesterday. The enigmatic reader (only identified by the initials "NS") even went so far as to include some unboxing pictures for our (and your) pleasure. Between this, and Sprint's recent Beyond Talk announcement, it looks like 2010 is shaping up to be a good year for pre-paid wireless. [Thanks, NS]
Sprint and Virgin Mobile announces Beyond Talk $25 prepaid plan, new prepaid brand
Sprint Nextel, through its Virgin Mobile brand, has announced a pretty big shift in its business model by offering new prepaid plans that begin at a mind-blowing $25 a month. Starting on May 12, three new Beyond Talk plans will include unlimited messaging, email, data, and web, as well as 300 minutes ($25), 1,200 minutes ($40), or unlimited minutes ($60) of talk time. And that ain't all -- BlackBerry data service can be added for an additional $10. Of course, you'll be paying full price for your phone, but at least the selection is indeed better than the usual pre-paid fare, including the Blackberry Curve 8530 ($300) and LG Rumor Touch ($150). We don't know how the other carriers are going to respond, but this does prompt the question: would you put up with Sprint's handset selection for a plan this cheap? PR after the break. Update: The Wall Street Journal has it that Sprint is also fixing to launch an entirely new prepaid brand, and while it declined to share a name for the new branch, it did confess that it "will let customers pay upfront for cell service by the minute rather than signing up for a month at a time." As you may expect, it'll be aimed at "middle-aged Americans who only use cellphones occasionally to make calls," and it'll join Boost Mobile, Assurance Wireless and Virgin Mobile in Sprint's rapidly expanding stable of prepaid sub-brands. Is it difficult to tell these guys love the prepaid and can't quite figure out how to make ends meet on the postpaid side? Nah...
