Comparing costs: prepaid vs post-paid iPhone plans

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PC World:

Virgin Mobile is the second U.S. carrier to offer prepaid iPhone plans, which could save you more than $500 over the lifetime of the phone compared to the big three carriers. Virgin’s iPhone deals go live from June 29, while Cricket’s prepaid Phone offers start June 22. So how does Virgin Mobile’s deal stack up against AT&T, Verizon and Sprint’s offers if you want to get an iPhone 4S? Since the big three are selling the iPhone with two-year contracts, I calculated the ownership costs of a 16GB iPhone 4S over this period with the lowest-cost plan available in order to compare it with Virgin and Cricket, which do not require a contract, so you’ll pay month by month.


  • http://www.facebook.com/benroethig Benjamin Roethig

    Here’s the catch though, for its regular CDMA-EVDO network, sprint partners with regional carriers for pretty much nationwide coverage. With Its prepaid Virgin Mobile and Boost brands, Sprint only uses its own towers for a much smaller nationwide footprint.

  • http://www.appleoutsider.de/ AppleOutsider.de – Sebastian P

    Now imagine you don’t buy the most recent iPhone but rather a 4 or 3GS. Two years of iPhone usage under a thousand bucks.

  • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

    I like this kind of pricing pressure. I hope Virgin Mobile gets a lot of this business.