Virgin Mobile Now Only Sells iPhones

Virgin Mobile, a prepaid subsidiary of major US wireless carrier Sprint, is transforming into a mobile operator that sells only smartphone devices made by Apple. To mark the start of its new identity, the company is introducing a new limited time special offer that gives customers one whole year of unlimited voice calls, text messaging, and data for only $1.

But like any promotional deal, it pays to be aware of the fine print. In the case of Virgin Mobile’s latest offer, unlimited data actually has some limits. For starters, customers who go beyond the allotted 23 gigabytes of data in any given billing cycle may be slowed down (or as carriers want to call it, deprioritized). The likelihood of throttling increases especially in times of network congestion.

Moreover, Virgin Mobile says it has the right to end a customer’s wireless service is that person’s off network roaming usage goes beyond either 800 voice call minutes or 100 megabytes of data. It should be noted that Virgin’s so-called unlimited option offers 800 domestic voice call minutes as well as a hundred megabytes of domestic data roaming on top of the unlimited data, voice calls, and text messaging.

And lest we forget, the deal is off if the customer does not buy an iPhone device from Virgin Mobile or Apple, and accordingly, port his phone number over to the wireless carrier’s new Inner Circle plan. For now, Virgin is selling models that include the iPhone SE, the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6s, the iPhone 6s Plus, the iPhone 7, and the iPhone 7 Plus on its official website. These models are made available in various storage configurations, mostly at retail price, except for the 32 gigabyte edition of the iPhone SE and the 128 gigabyte editions, which come with discounted prices as compared to Apple’s usual pricing.

As for the $1 one year unlimited deal, interested parties might want to know that the special offer is made available only until July 31st of this year. Beyond that promo period, the deal transforms into a half year unlimited thing only. The $1 deal is obviously a ploy by Virgin Mobile to attract new sign ups, and the carrier is certainly hoping that by the time the one year period expires, customers will not mind continuing the plan and paying $50 a month (with the Auto Pay option).

Learn more about other deals -- explore more plans and phones from Virgin Mobile at MyRatePlan now, or browse other deals and devices from Sprint.