Goodbye, Virgin Mobile
At the risk of showboating a bit, I ended my 8+ year customer relationship with Virgin Mobile the other day. I can’t think of any other company that I’ve continually paid a recurring service fee to for that long. I’ve never used anyone else for cell phone service. I’ve never had a cell phone contract, and with any luck, I never will.
I signed up during my freshman year in college1, with their cheapest phone, a Kyocera K7 Rave. I remember it because of the cool name. It glowed blue, and was generally a piece of junk, but to me it was an amazing novelty. The number pad fell off after three years or so (remember when it was normal to keep a cell phone for that long?).
Until last week, I was still grandfathered into the $0.18/minute plan that hasn’t been offered for quite a long time.2 All I had to do was add at least $20 every 3 months to keep my line active, and considering how little I talk on the phone (and the fact that I make most calls from my cheap VoIP line when I’m home), I almost never paid more than the minimum, which meant I paid about $7/month for cell phone service. I used to love telling people that and seeing their reactions.
I’ve had no real complaints about the voice service. I was rarely anywhere that I can remember not having a signal. Not many missed calls after the first year or two.
But things have changed. The world has changed. I wanted an iPhone since it first came out, but I couldn’t stand the idea of a contract, even if broke-college-student-me could have afforded one. So I got an iPod Touch as soon as I could. I loved it.
Then I decided I wanted to make iPhone apps. So I did, and I got a job making them. And it began to get more and more ridiculous that I, an iPhone developer, didn’t have an iPhone. I was still stuck with a beat-up old flip-phone that could only make phone calls, an iPod Touch, an iPad, and a Virgin Mobile MiFi that was so buggy and temperamental that it couldn’t even power itself on properly half the time.
I was certainly paying attention when Virgin Mobile announced they would carry the iPhone. But I soon found out that they would be locking the SIM slot, with a policy of not unlocking it under any circumstances. That doesn’t sit well with me. If they felt like subsidising the phone gives them the right to tell me what I can or can’t do with it, fine. But if I pay full price–which is what they’re charging–that should mean I own the phone, not them; I should be able to do what I want with it, including switch to another carrier if I want. And the fact that I stayed with them for so long should show that it doesn’t take much to keep me happy. But the idea of not being allowed to do something with my own property is what drives me crazy. It’s too bad.
I ported my number away late last week. Not a peep from them. I called just to make sure I was not going to be charged any more. I was told in an indifferent tone that my account had been automatically cancelled. No follow up. No asking why I left. No thanks for my years of being a good customer and paying on time. I don’t know what I expected; they didn’t owe me anything, any more than I owed them anything.
Oh well. I guess not everyone is as sentimental about these things as I am.
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Yes, robot stalkers from the future, this means you now know what year I went to college. I trust you will use this information unsympathetically to screw me out of a job opportunity or something. ↩︎
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Last I checked, they still have a similar $0.25/minute plan, but you really have to look hard to find it on their web site. At this point though, AT&T has a better deal with GoPhone for $0.10/minute, if anyone still cares about getting a phone just for phone calls. ↩︎