I'm thinking about getting it and i'd like some opinions.

Virginmobile? Is that what you call the carpool to the Chess Club's monthly meeting?

They run on the T-mobile (1-2-1) network, so reception in areas may be slightly dodgy.

I've only heard good things about customer service and prices.

I'm with T-mobile and have passed my old mobiles onto my mum and brother and just bought them Virgin mobile SIMs. They've had no problems.

> They run on the T-mobile (1-2-1) network, so reception in areas may be slightly dodgy.

T-Mobile's network is way better than it was a few years ago. I've even been in places where o2, Vodafone and Orange don't have coverage but T-Mobile do. Though I guess you could say that about any network.

I had to return mine due to reception problems. That was back in 2000, when they were one-to-(no)one. I was in Northamptonshire at the time.

Had no problems getting a cash refund though !

I used to have one-2-one in 1999/2000 and found it to have terrible reception. In the end I switched to Orange because it had better coverage around my area and I'm still with them.

Anyway, back to Virgin Mobile/T-Mobile. My sister has a contract with them and she's had no problems at all. Good coverage including where I am. They've increased the number of cells I'm guessing.

It's cheap and good value for what you get is the general opinion of all the people I know that have it.

- Trevor

As you are in the US, I assume you mean the US Virgin Mobile service, rather than the UK one that everyone appears to have already replied about.

In the US they share the Sprint network and appear to have reasonable coverage. We got my step daughter one for christmas and she doesn't appear to have a problem with not being able to make and receive calls. The only time she did struggle was when we were in Tahoe, but my Cingular and AT&T TDMA phones were struggling too.

For the money, and if their charging structure suits you then I think they are a good option.

Ohh. Didn't know you had Virgin Mobile in the US as well

- Trevor

It arrived in Texas around autumn last year, no doubt in time for the Christmas spending rush.

They use the same type of pricing policy over here, x cents a minute for the first y minutes per day, dopping to z cents a minute for all calls after that. The only real differance is they charge you for incomming calls here too

Bit annoying about the incoming calls part. Then again, I'm sure you pay much less than what we would for line rental and call costs

I've had a few telemarketers call me on my mobile phone. Usually it's actually other mobile phone networks asking if I want to swap oddly enough. If they don't go away after I tell them I'm not interested then they get to talk to the loose change in my pocket I've put my number on the TPS list now anyway so in theory I shouldn't get any more.

- Trevor

Charge for incoming calls? Glad we don't have that!

Bit annoying about the incoming calls part.
...
I've had a few telemarketers call me on my mobile phone.

Telemarketing to mobile phones is illegal in the US, IIRC, for just that reason.

Yet another reason to drop land lines entirely!
-Zeke

Bit annoying about the incoming calls part.
I was shocked at first, having come from the UK, but the company pays for my phones here so I don't realy care
And the teenager is on Virgin Mobile so she cannot run up big bills without having already spent the money.

Then again, I'm sure you pay much less than what we would for line rental and call costs

Actually I think mobile phones are one of the things that are better value in the UK, although I guess it depends on which point of view you are looking at it from, it is cheeper to call a mobile in the US (charged at the same rate as calling any other phone, or free if it is a local number), but then the mobile user has to pay to receive a call. In the UK mobiles are more expensive to call, but free to receive calls on. So I just guess it depends on whether you spend all your time being called on your mobile, or all your time calling mobiles.

Either way someone pays 'extra' for that call, and the networks make money, but I guess that is life

Of course, it also depends on what service you use. With SprintPCS, you pay for a certain number of minutes of usage a month and wether you call someone or you are receiving a call - those minutes are being used up. That is, unless you are calling another SprintPCS customer - in which case no minutes are used up on either end. The same applies for a few other cell providers in the US. This works great if all of your friends use the same cell service.

- trs

The most annoying thing about paying to take calls is that it seems to be brought about by government messing rather than market pressure.
But in the US, the cell phone numbers are in the same area codes as the land lines, so the regular caller cannot tell if it is mobile or not.
In the UK, all the cellphone carriers have unique area codes that identify a cellphone.

I cannot see the point of giving a mobile device a location based area code. But I guess that cellphones,TV and radio are the three areas where the US is light years behind europe.

How long has the BBC been transmitting HDTV? We are still years from real coverage here, they are still fighting over the money.

This is the way I look at it as well. I get 2000 minutes a month for basically the same price I was paying for a land line. I very rarely use more than 6-700 minutes in a month, so I still consider my mobile time as free. I threw my landline out 3 years ago or so and haven't even looked back. I never ever miss it. This is all well and good for a single person or a couple, but when a family gets involved, things can get very expensive very quick, and a landline IS a good investment.

except that an international call to England on Verizon is 65c a minute (in addition to airtime rates) or 9c a minute with SWBell.
Other countries are $1.50 a minute !!!!!

I threw my landline out 3 years ago or so and haven't even looked back.

I've thought about this a few times, but then I remember that I've never had cell phone service that I thought was quality enough for anything other than emergent situations. Yet I hear people talking about cell phones all the time like the quality's good.

Am I alone on this?

I am the same, I have a decent enough cellphone which is great in town, but out in the boonies where I live the reception is terrible.
The downside to digital is that when the signal gets marginal it is less useful than old analog. I am not even in BFE.

But I guess that cellphones, TV and radio are the three areas where the US is light years behind europe.


I can see why cell phones are behind and the coverage is poor. The US is a MUCH bigger place and requires more cell sites. The infrastructure expense to get us where we are now has been enormous.

I cannot explain away the TV/Radio lag as easily. Other than to say they too don't have the population density thus the revenue to upgrade. Plus the economy has been down the toilet. I believe many think that TV/Radio transmitting may be going down the tubes. Cable TV, Satellite TV and XM Radio are putting the hurt on conventional TV (VHF/UHF) and Radio (AM/FM).

but then the mobile user has to pay to receive a call

There are plans that have free incoming calls. I have such a plan with my Nextel phone. It's not even like it's an expensive option.

I use Nextel at work a nd they work great in that scenario, I even seriously considered them for personal use. But the coverage royally sucks!

A while back I noticed that it was the same price for me to call Canada (15p a minute) and for me to call a mobile on another network. I really do wonder sometimes where my calls are being routed via.

- Trevor

Coverage in Stony Point, NY (the podunk town I work in) rocks. Nextel is the only service compared to Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile that has full signal throughout our entire building. Verizon (surprisingly) has no signal at all. This is the primary reason I dumped Verizon for Nextel.

Nextel works great at my house too. The only issue is taking the phone out of the country (with the exception of Canada). I think the phone can use the 900MHz GSM band, but from what I heard 1800MHz is more common in europe. It is possible to buy an unlocked GSM phone and use your Nextel SIM with it though. I may have to get one before my trip to the Amsterdam meet.

I cannot explain away the TV/Radio lag as easily. Other than to say they too don't have the population density thus the revenue to upgrade. Plus the economy has been down the toilet. I believe many think that TV/Radio transmitting may be going down the tubes. Cable TV, Satellite TV and XM Radio are putting the hurt on conventional TV (VHF/UHF) and Radio (AM/FM).

You could argue that it's partly due to the same reason - lower population density increasing the broadcast cost per subscriber. The only broadcast system that overcomes low population density is satellite, but that has a huge barrier to market entry.

I'd argue that a lot of it is due to the FCC screwing up all the time. The amount of competition in the market is decreasing constantly. In 1983 over 85% of US TV programming was produced by small networks, either local or independant. That figure has dropped to around 20% today, with the big national networks (ie ABC, NBC etc) producing the rest.
The rules on media ownership were relaxed in 1993, resulting in Clearchannel owning the vast majority of radio stations. The FCC is due to vote on further relaxing the regulations again, which would make it easier for a company to effectively own the vast majority of radio/TV/ISPs/newspapers serving a geographical area.
This is not good news for the US. It's already obvious that the big networks avoid issues that they don't like. (For example, this one - CNN and Fox would prefer to cover "Who did the Bachelor choose?"...). BBC News Online reported a 38% increase in US viewing figures during the recent Iraq war, which indicates that people are starting to notice.
What is really disappointing is that Michael Powell (The FCC's Chairman) has rejected calls for a delay in the vote or for more public consultation. And yet the few public meetings that have been arranged to discuss this issue have resulted in thousands of people who are vehemently opposed to further relaxation of the rules. Of the 1/3 million or so emails that the FCC have received on the subject, something like 99% of them have been in opposition.

Arrgh. I'm ranting.

The rules on media ownership were relaxed in 1993

Sorry to nitpick, but I think you're referring to the 1996 telecommucations act which lifted the cap on the number of radio stations a company could own across markets or geographical areas.

- trs

point is though,
[rant]
most of the reasons that US TV, Radio, Cell and yes even the telephone systems are in the dark ages is entirely due to the FCC screwing around with things they obviously don't understand at any level and just end up sticking meaningless rules in the way, usually at the expense of the consumer.
[/rant]