His reality show may have sucked serious ass, but The Rebel Billionaire is all the rage in Canada right now—if you want a mobile phone, at least.
Virgin Mobile not-so-quietly launched in Alberta, BC, Ontario and Québec yesterday, and though it’s basically a repurposed signal from Bell Canada (and the same hideously ugly phones), I think it’ll do quite well. Here’s why:
Bell’s own prepaid plans charge 30¢ for the first 2 minutes of a given call, and 5¢/minute for any additional airtime on top of that. Virgin charges 25¢ for the first 5 minutes of each day, and 15¢/minute for everything after that.
Here’s how a day of light cell phone usage would break down:
Bell
5 min. = 2 x 30¢ + 3 x 5¢ = 75¢
3 min. = 2 x 30¢ + 1 x 5¢ = 65¢
2 min. = 2 x 30¢ = 60¢
Total for the day = $2.00
Virgin
5 min. = 2 x 25¢ + 3 x 15¢ = 95¢
3 min. = 3 x 15¢ = 45¢
2 min. = 2 x 15¢ = 30¢
Total for the day = $1.70
So after only 10 minutes of airtime, the Virgin Mobile client has already realized a savings of 15%, for the exact same service as Bell, but with no contract!
If, after all this, you’re still considering a contract with Bell Mobility, please click here for an important message…
Andrew Currie 
Comments
2 responses to “The Verdict on Virgin”
You wrote:
Actually, that should be:
5 min. = 5 x 25¢ = $1.25
Thus:
Total for the day = $2.00
which is the same as Bell’s.
Right you are. I thought maybe the rates had changed, but I checked my souvenir Virgin flyer from the launch and the prices are exactly the same.
I guess Virgin’s handsets are cheaper, at least—though all CDMA phones are butt-ugly IMHO.
😛