Wow! The Virgin Mobile prices are amazing.
For unlimited data and unlimited voice:
Verizon Wireless: $30 + $70 = $100
Virgin Mobile: $55 no contract, no penalty on the Sprint 3G network.
Save $45 per month!
I would need to payoff about $70 remaining on my two year penalty to Verizon Wireless for early termination. That's out of $175. I learned that if I got a new Verizon Wireless Android phone with a two year commitment the penalty would double to $350. Verizon Wireless has gotten carried away.
I could payoff the $70 in two months of savings.
I would have to buy a new Android phone, the Motorola Triumph for $300, which is at least as good as my Motorola Droid, which has developed some screen anomalies.
I'd be about even in about in about 8 months ... with a new better phone.
The only drawback is that Virgin Mobile is limited to Sprint's 3G; no 4G.
I'd like to buy the Motorola Triumph with an option to return and cancel to try it in parallel for a couple of weeks. Then if I like it, switch my Verizon phone number to
Virgin Mobile and cancel Verizon.
I sent an e-mail to Virgin Mobile asking about this. Let's see how its customer service responds, if at all.
2 comments:
Well, you have to amortize the cost of the phone over some time period to calculate your actual savings. Let’s use the two years of a typical contract. $300/24 months=$12.50 per month, so your savings are actually $45 – 12.50 = $32.50. But that’s still a real savings. And after the phone is paid for, your savings go up.
My beef is that after two years, Verizon should say “the phone is paid off” and subtract the monthly amount of the amortization from the bill. They don’t, of course, pocketing that amount as profit. What would your reaction be if your bank decided to keep charging you a monthly payment, even after you car was paid off? But Verizon gets away with it. For now…
The European model is similar to Virgin’s, except you buy your phone from anywhere you want and you buy your service from a service provider. It’s a clear-cut separation of transactions. I think that’s coming to our shores, as the big service providers realize that people aren’t that stupid for that long. But they’ll milk it as long as they can.
After two years Verizon Wireless and the other service providers should allow you to use the phone only for voice and cancel the plan and use WiFi instead. I specifically asked VW about this and was turned down, even when I asked to substitute VW MiFi service, which would provide VW with more revenue. Another reason I am considering Virgon Mobile.
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