Navarr's Tech Side

Virgin Mobile USA purchased Helio lately, which is super freaking awesome and all well and good, except for the lack of continuity across plans.  Want an example?

The Virgin Mobile Shuttle.  A fantastic, 3G phone that comes without a contract.  The phone itself costs just $80, and for unlimited talk, the price is only $50 per month.  Not a bad deal, is it?  You can even add unlimited texting into that deal for another $10 per month. 

Then, of course, there is the Helio Heat.  Cost of $219 (Minus an additional $170 if you’re a new member, and another $49 if you’re purchasing online for a free phone!)  But if you want unlimited talk on that plan (and nothing else) it’ll run you $80 per month!  Although, you can move that up to a Completely Unlimited Voice, Data, Text, IM, etc. for $100 per month; but still, in comparison the prices for the plans just don’t add up!

So what does Virgin Mobile need to do?  Personally, I think they should finally combine Helio with themselves, and even out the plans to bring them some continuity!  Without it, things just don’t seem to be in the right ballpark.