Report: Virgin Mobile to Become Second Pay-as-You-Go iPhone Carrier

Report: Virgin Mobile to Become Second Pay-as-You-Go iPhone Carrier:

On Cricket and now Virgin Mobile, there's no need for a contract with your iPhone 4S. Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired

iPhone users looking to ditch their monthly tethers to Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint might be in luck. It looks like Sprint’s Virgin Mobile will be the second carrier to offer the iPhone through a pay-as-you-go model.
Pricing for the Virgin Mobile iPhone availability, which is set for July 1, is still unknown, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. But Virgin Mobile currently has prepaid unlimited data plans that start as low as $35 per month, with data speed throttling for users who surpass 2.5GB of data usage in one month.
Cricket Mobile became the first operator to announce it would be offering the iPhone with a pay-as-you-go model last week. Beginning June 22, Cricket will sell the 16GB iPhone 4S for $500 and the 8GB iPhone 4 for $400, contract-free.
This contract-free model could help attract less affluent cellphone owners to the iOS platform, as well as those who are tired of paying premium prices on their monthly post-paid bill through other major U.S. wireless carriers. It’s a smart move, as the prepaid market has a limited number of smartphone options.
The pay-as-you-go market isn’t all that niche, either. At the end of 2011, about a quarter of the nation’s wireless subscribers used prepaid wireless plans.