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Sprint pays $483m for a bit of Virgin territory

Sprint has snapped up Virgin Mobile USA, folding the brand into its own in exchange for stock that values the operation at $483m. Not that Sprint will have to raise quite that much: the operator already holds 13.1 per cent of Virgin Mobile USA, as well as being the network on which the MVNO* is hosted. Sprint also runs the Boost …

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Anonymous Coward
FAIL

US Telcos (can't) help themselves.

Perhaps the American public's lack of interest in prepaid mobile is due to the cellular companies desire for monthly recurring revenue without feeling any obligation to provide customers with a service in return.

Typically, if prepaid minutes remain unused for 30 days after you paid for them, the telco keeps your money and gives you a big, fat nothing.

Contrast that with, for example, Virgin Mobile in the UK. Last month while visiting on business, I used the left-over time I had on a pre-paid SIM purchased over a year earlier at Tesco!

The North American telcos are slowly being dragged out of their self-imposed Cellular Stone Age but they still regard revenue from customers as a right rather than something to be earned.

Anonymous Coward
WTF?

Why pre-pay

I've spent £60 using PAYG on my phone in 18 months! If I had a contract phone, that could have been £450, or more! Her-Indoors (who is with PAYG Virgin in the UK) has spent about the same amount. My sprog has a contract with O2 & has horrendously high bills, over £100 per quarter, (he pays them, not me!)

Andy Livingstone

DWC%

* Mobile Virtual Network Operator - a brand camped on someone else's network.

%Do We Care - a brand that has lost its way.

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