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Virgin Mobile USA says bye bye to their postpaid Helio service

Virgin Mobile USA says bye bye to their postpaid Helio service

Posted: 02 Mar 2010, 10:41, by John V.

Categories: Helio Helio Bookmark

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Virgin Mobile USA says bye bye to their postpaid Helio service

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Once considered a big fish in the sea of MVNO providers, Helio will soon be phased out completely by Sprint. Before being acquired by Sprint, Virgin Mobile laid claim to the leftover of customers that Helio still carried along – but that may soon change as postpaid customers are going to be given an ultimatum by Sprint. Helio of course will go down in history as being one of the potential companies that saw waves in the MVNO community with its untraditional looking phones and wide array of services that cater to their customers. Back in June 2008, Virgin Mobile managed to snatch up Helio for $39 million in stock and served as the basis of their non-existent postpaid service. Once Sprint took over the reigns and acquired Virgin Mobile, it would be a matter of time before they plan on halting Virgin Mobile's postpaid service completely – obviously it wouldn't make sense to compete with Sprint's own postpaid services. Existing Virgin Mobile postpaid customers (formerly Helio) are being offered $50 towards the purchase of an already discounted price for a Sprint postpaid handset with their signature on a 2 year contract – activation fees will be waived to make the offer a bit more juicy for them. They'll have to think quick because when May 25th rolls around, it'll be lights out for good for those customers still holding on to the remnants of Helio.

source: MobileCrunch

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1. ibap posted on 20 Oct 2010, 01:45 0 0

The Ocean was a pretty cool phone. Maybe one of its descendants will resurface?

2. rwolf1984 posted on 02 Mar 2010, 13:25 0 0

This is a good move for Sprint. Hopefully they will be able to pick up a good # of these Virgin Mobile contract customers and get them into another 2 year contract.

4. cereal posted on 02 Mar 2010, 15:20 0 0

A good move? Sprint is essentially giving a big middle finger to 86,000 potential customers. I'm one of those customers. Being unemployed right now, I can't afford a new phone, and I'm certainly not signing a two year contract that leaves me stuck with some crappy free phone. Helio was contracting mobile service from Sprint anyway, so there's no excuse for not allowing people to continue using their current phones. I'll certainly never use Sprint again, and a good portion of those other 86,000 people will likely feel the same way.

6. rwolf1984 posted on 02 Mar 2010, 19:57 0 0

Sprint's not giving them the middle finger. Sprint's giving them to get a better phone with better features and probably a better plan. I bet Sprint will waive activation and they should!! Sometimes you can put the phone on ur bill....

7. DonLouie posted on 03 Mar 2010, 09:06 0 0

You are way off base with that assesment, Sprint is giving subs an additional $50 off new sub price and waiving all fees. Use the unemployment benefits and get a better, cheaper more inclusive plan or go prepay

8. rwolf1984 posted on 03 Mar 2010, 13:38 0 0

Some people will get upset and be inclined to leave like alltel people that didnt wanna go with Verizon for whatever reason...but Sprint will hold on to the majority of these customers!

3. JeffdaBeat posted on 02 Mar 2010, 15:02 0 0

Helio back in the day was awesome. The company offered these feature rich phones that you simply couldn't find else where unless on a PDA. But now, all phones offer the same thing. Helio, even as a sub of Sprint or even Virgin Mobile, didn't seem so feature rich anymore. Oh well...