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 …
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.
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!)
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