Assurance Wireless
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| Fate | Merged November 24, 2009 |
| Founded | October 18, 2001 San Francisco, California, United States |
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| Headquarters | Kansas City, MO, United States |
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Number of employees
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500 (2009) |
| Parent | Sprint Corporation |
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| Website |
virginmobileusa |
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Footnotes / references |
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Virgin Mobile USA Virgin Mobile USA is a no-contract mobile provider on the nationwide Sprint network. Virgin Mobile USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sprint Corporation and one of many Virgin Mobile brands around the world. Virgin Mobile USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sprint Corporation.
Founded in 2001 as a joint venture between Virgin Group and Sprint Corporation, Virgin Mobile USA commenced operations in June 2002 as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), providing services via the Sprint 1900 MHz CDMA network. In 2008, Virgin Mobile USA acquired post-paid services provider Helio, Inc. In 2009, Sprint Nextel bought out joint venture partner Virgin Group, becoming the sole owner of Virgin Mobile USA.
On May 31, 2012, Virgin Mobile USA began offering products and services compatible with the Sprint's 2500 MHz 4G WiMAX network, and on February 25, 2013, Virgin Mobile USA began offering its first 4G LTE device, the Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE made available for $299.99 without a contract.
Virgin Mobile-branded handsets and broadband access devices are available online and at more than 40,000 retail partner locations including Best Buy, Target, Walmart and independent dealers nationwide. Virgin Mobile branded top-up cards are available online and in 150,000 retail locations nationwide.
Sprint Corporation licenses the right to use the Virgin Mobile brand in the United States from United Kingdom-based Virgin Group. Virgin Mobile USA is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri and provides service to approximately 6 million customers.https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/sep/21/4
Virgin Mobile USA was formed in 2000 by a small team of wireless experts in San Francisco. In July 2000, John Tantum and Dave Whetstone pitched Richard Branson on entering the U.S. market after Virgin had successfully launched Virgin Mobile in the United Kingdom in 1999. "Sounds great, let's give it a go!" was Branson's answer. At that point, the U.S. team began pitching the U.S. mobile operators on the concept of an MVNO, which at the time was not well understood. There had been many resellers that had come and gone (MCI was one of the highest profile examples). The MVNO concept Virgin Mobile was pitching to mobile operators was a joint venture, where both parties would have aligned incentives to create a valuable business. This was very different than the often contentious relationship that mobile operators had with resellers. Sprint had tried and failed twice with a prepaid product, and decided that maybe a partner could do it better. Once Sprint stepped up the mobile network in September 2001, a joint venture was created between Virgin Group and Sprint Corporation, and Dan Schulman was brought in to run the business. Virgin Mobile USA began operating in the summer of 2002 and was the first mobile virtual network operator in the United States. Because prepay had a downmarket perception at the time, Virgin Mobile USA called its service "pay as you go." It was a prepaid-only provider.
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Wikipedia