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well, Jiminy CRICKET [I CALLz it, like I seez it]?!....CRICKET isn't the only provider that will be offering a prepaid i
#1
....Virgin Mobile announced today they will be selling --> 8 GB iPhone 4 for $549/16GB iPhone 4S for $649........starting June 29......

....$30 month plan includes unlimited date and text and 300 minutes of calls....


Virgin Mobile gets iPhone for $549, $30 per month

..... Virgin Mobile USA, one of Sprint's brands for prepaid, no-contract phone service, said Thursday it will start selling the iPhone on June 29, charging $549 for a basic model.

The high price of the phone comes with an upside: service will start at $30 per month.

That means the phone, plus two years of service, will cost $1,269, excluding taxes. That's nearly $800 less than a subscriber would pay for the same phone, an iPhone 4 with 8 gigabytes of memory, if buying it under the Sprint Nextel Corp. brand. Sprint charges $100 for the phone and $80 per month for service, excluding taxes.

The iPhone has until recently been restricted to contract-based plans. Now, the floodgates appear open for the phone to enter the prepaid, no-contract market, which is aimed at people with low incomes and poor credit. However, the high initial cost of the phone is likely to be an obstacle. Virgin Mobile sells other smartphones for as little as $80.

Last week, Leap Wireless International Inc., the parent of the Cricket prepaid service, said it would start selling the phone on June 22, starting at $400 and $55 per month. Leap's CEO said the phone would likely account for about 10 percent of the phones it sells over the next few years.

For Apple Inc., the maker of the phone, expanding sales to the no-contract segment means a chance to reach buyers who don't have the credit for contract-based plans, or don't want to be tied down with contracts. The number of people on contract-based plans has plateaued, and actually contracted for the first time in the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, the number of people on no-contract plans is still growing.

In addition to the iPhone 4, Virgin Mobile USA will sell the iPhone 4S, the model launched last year, for $649 with 16 gigabytes of memory.

Virgin Mobile's cheapest plan cost $35 per month, with a $5 discount possible for buyers who set up automatic monthly payment with a credit card, debit card or PayPal account. It provides 300 minutes of calling per month and unlimited texting. Data usage is also "unlimited," but is slowed drastically after the customer has used 2.5 gigabytes since the start of the billing cycle. IPhones with "Sprint" service have true unlimited data..;....


DEFLOWERED.....??


from their own website......
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#2
I might be interested. But I would like at least a 4s.
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#3
I remember Apple making some noise about stepping into the prepaid market, but I gave up waiting for the move to be made.

Could be time to reconsider with the Cricket and Virgin announcements. Then again, with a new Nexus GSM model available for $400 unlocked…that's a heck of a phone at a nice savings. When it comes to CDMA prepaid, carriers generally already have at least one decent low end Android phone and one decent midrange Android phone available. While these iPhone prepaid announcements are nice, the impact on me personally is much lessoned than it would have been two years or even a year ago. However, I'm sure many people will appreciate the wider range of carrier choice for the iPhone.
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