It was just a few hours ago that I wrote about how unlimited lte data has become the latest buzz word in mobile. Well, it seems that yet another provider has decided that it needs to offer such a plan as well. This time it's Virgin Mobile, one of the prepaid brands that is controlled by Sprint.
Virgin Mobile is calling the new plan "Data Love Unlimited" and it is being priced at $60 per month. The plan of course also includes unlimited talk and text in addition to nationwide voice roaming which Virgin claims will give its subscribers coverage across 99% of the continental USA.
Like many other unlimited lte data plans, data prioritization gets applied to your line once you've surpassed 23 GB of high speed data used in a month. Data prioritization means that your data speeds may be temporarily slowed during times that the network is under heavy traffic.
It is possible that Virgin Mobile will offer mobile-optimized video that does not count against your high speed data cap as well, but the language used on their website is not clear. It simply says that the plan includes unlimited "mobile-optimized" video. Virgin Mobile has updated their website and the plan does in fact include unlimited video streaming that does not count against your high speed data prioritization cap. As mentioned, resolution however is limited to 480p.
Virgin Mobile offers two other phone plans with unlimited talk, text and data with varying amounts of high speed data and nationwide voice roaming. The plans also include Limitless Music and they are priced as follows:
- Data Love, $35/month, 5 GB of high speed data
- Data Love+, $45/month, 10 GB of high speed data
Virgin Mobile's plans certainly offer great value, and are pretty cheap when compared to a lot of other providers. Of course, for the plans to be so cheap, they do come at a price elsewhere.
Virgin Mobile does not fully support bring your own device (BYOD), so you cannot just switch to them from Sprint or another Sprint MVNO and keep your current phone. You have to purchase a new phone from the company, and their phone selection is scarce, with just 23 devices being offered. The company does state that BYOD is a feature that they are planning to implement, and users with a handful of devices may already be able to port over to them. If you have one of the following devices, (iPhone 7 (Verizon Only), iPhone 7 Plus (Verizon Only), iPhone SE (Verizon Only), iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 5s (Verizon Only), iPhone 5c (Verizon Only), Samsung Galaxy S7 Special Edition, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Special Edition, you may be able to bring it on over to Virgin Mobile right now.
So, does Virgin Mobile's latest offering interest you, or would you rather be with a different carrier that supports unlimited data?