Virgin Mobile postpaid goes to the big MVNO in the sky in May

In the US, Virgin’s never been known as a serious postpaid player outside of its Helio acquisition, so it makes some sense that new corporate parent Sprint is killing off its postpaid services — what’s rather wild, though, is that they’re doing it in dramatic, scorched-earth fashion. The service is simply ending on May 25, a little under three months from now, with no automatic transition to any other service in Sprint’s portfolio — Virgin prepaid, Boost, Sprint, or Sprint Direct Connect — but the good news is that anyone interested in moving over to Sprint postpaid specifically will get a $50 discount off any device with a new two-year contract plus waived activation fees. It’s far from a slam dunk for either Sprint or legacy customers — we’re certain that not all of them will stay within the company’s ecosystem — but with Virgin clearly part of Sprint’s prepaid strategy, there was apparently no good business reason to continue supporting a handful of postpaid customers off to the side. For what it’s worth, a Virgin Mobile spokesperson reached out to us today to emphasize that the company’s prepaid brand is here to stay: “Virgin Mobile with Boost Mobile will be the cornerstone of Sprint’s prepaid strategy in 2010.” 2011, though… well, that remains to be seen.

Virgin Mobile postpaid goes to the big MVNO in the sky in May originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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