Darshan Patel, Director of Mobile Data Services at Virgin Mobile USA confirms Sprint plans to merge prepaid networks
It’s not a matter of if but when, confirmed a Virgin Mobile executive at the Sprint Open Developer conference held this week in Santa Clara, Calif.
“It’s early to know when they [Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile] will coincide… But there’s only one prepaid division inside of Sprint… and we want to be the dominant prepaid player in the industry,” replied Darshan Patel, the director of mobile data services at Virgin Mobile USA to our question on the future of Sprint’s 3 prepaid networks.
Sprint to kill Helio and offer prepaid smartphones
As for Helio, the situation is a bit more complicated as the virtual operator which Virgin Mobile acquired in June last year, offers both prepaid and postpaid plans.
Again, according to Patel, Helio postpaid customers will “shift” to Sprint, while its prepaid users move to Virgin Mobile.
My guess is that when the dust settles – in a year of so – Virgin Mobile will become Sprint’s branded prepaid division.
Finally, Patel confirmed that Sprint will offer prepaid smartphones from RIM’s Blackberry, HTC and even perhaps from Palm! Wonder if they would be able to sell these for $130 or less, which is price of the most expensive feature phone from Virgin Mobile.
Follows is the video excerpt where Patel answers our question on Sprint’s long term prepaid strategy:
thank you for posting this. information about whats going to happen to these brands is hard to come by and no one is covering it. been looking for official info about what is going to happen to helio users for a while.
Got a call from a Sprint rep this morning. The deal is they will “honor” my Helio/Virgin contract till it ends or I can switch to a new Sprint plan and device. Switching between Helio branded phones is out (awesome feature) so will be stuck with one phone – I’ve got an Ocean and Heat. No support for unlocked phones and 2 year contract is mandatory with ANY upgrade.
I hope so Sprint does intro prepaid smartphones soon. I want to relieve my expenses with my contract phone.
So you’re saying in effect, Virgin Mobile would end up with smartphones like the BlackBerry in their lineup? Ha! That’ll be the day!
Sprint owns VM and Boost *and* Boost does offer the Blackberry Curve on a pay as you go plan. I guess the day is already here
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This is a bunch of fucking bull shit!! just get some new mutha fucking phones for virgin mobile! im sick of this shit!! at least come out with a touch screen for God’s sake! fuck you all!!
I couldn’t have picked a better title for this piece if I tried – as a Sprint customer it hits the financial nail on the head. While the Boost network might not be as “reliable” as the Sprint calling network, it is nonetheless the same main calling network and therefore, the only difference is name and contract status. I’m with Sprint and I love the network, but its been getting harder and harder to pay my bill these days and I can’t afford to break contract and move to another company. I think Sprint’s president needs to be made aware of just how important saving prob more than $50 could be to all his customers or at least making the option more known. Visit http://sites.google.com/site/sprintcustomersunite/ and make your voice heard.
Reasonable argument you delineate in Sprint Prepaid Division To Merge Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile, Helio; Offer Smartphones (video) . Entertaining to check the post and supplemental perspectives uttered by participants on some other blogs. Keep the items coming. As the terminator said I will be back.