Virgin Mobile

OK. So these guys have some new stuff going on.

First off, they are going to change their lowest-tier rate structure to flat 18 cents per minute, from the 25-for-ten-then-10 scheme. This is a good move; the older plan would only be better if you spent 19 or more minutes on any day you talked. In which case Virgin's daily fee plan would probably work out to be cheaper.

The bad thing is now you can easily compare Virgin with any other prepaid. And it wins in some cases (Boost's daytime non-M2M rate is 20 cents, Movida is 20 cents) but loses in others (Boost M2M or nights\weekends is a mere 10 cents per minute). And if you used more than about 45 minutes a month with STi, even on their annoying 10 cent per day junk fee plan, STi would be cheaper.

Thing number two, which I'll cover again here since it has to do with Virgin Mobile: text is going to be 5 cents both ways soon. There will be cheaper-by-the-bundle text packages but it's annoying to see everyone charging for incoming text now.

Thng number three: at my local Wal-Mart the Kyocera K10 is now $20. Pretty good deal, considering the phone has a color screen and web access...until you find out that the phone includes a paltry $2.50 in startup airtime. Right next to it is the Tracfone Nokia 2126, which with Refer-A-Friend is cheaper than the airtime that comes on it...