Virgin Mobile USA

Virgin Mobile USA

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Wireless communications Entertainment
Fate	Merged November 24, 2009 (2009-11-24)
Founded	October 18, 2001; 15 years ago (2001-10-18) San Francisco, California, United States
Founder	Richard Branson John Tantum
Headquarters	Kansas City, MO, United States
Number of locations	40,000 (handset retail partners) 150,000 (Top-Up card retailers)
Area served	Contiguous United States Hawaii Puerto Rico
Key people	Jeff Auman, Vice President, Virgin Mobile USA Business Line Mark Lederma, Business Line Director
Products	Wireless phones, Mobile broadband devices
Services	Beyond Talk Unlimited Data & Messaging plans PayLo Talk & Text plans Broadband2Go plans
Number of employees	500 (2009)
Parent	Sprint Corporation
Subsidiaries	Assurance Wireless of South Carolina, LLC Helio defunct Virgin Mobile USA, L.P.
Website	virginmobileusa.com assurancewireless.com
Footnotes / references

Virgin Mobile USA is a prepaid wireless voice, messaging, and mobile broadband service provider in the contiguous United States, Hawaii and Puerto Rico under the Virgin Mobile, sub brands payLo and Assurance Wireless. Virgin Mobile USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sprint Corporation.

Founded in 2001 as a joint venture between Virgin Group, and original 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. then 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 contract.

Virgin Mobile-branded handsets and broadband access devices are available online and at more than 40,000 retail partner locations including Best Buy, RadioShack, 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 Warren, New Jersey, United States and provides service to approximately 6 million customers.https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/sep/21/4