Virgin Mobile goes iPhone-only and offers a year of unlimited talk, text, and data for $1

The telecom network business can be pretty ruthless. With major players like AT&T and Verizon snatching up as much bandwidth as possible, smaller companies typically resort to other methods to provide service. MVNOs, or Mobile Virtual Network Operators, are smaller cellphone service providers that piggyback on the network infrastructure of one of the Big 4 (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint). MVNOs typically have to offer something unique in order to attract customers, and it doesn’t get much more unique than what Virgin announced today.

Virgin Mobile, which operates on Sprint’s network, has announced that they will exclusively offer iPhones starting June 27th as part of an initiative they’re calling the “Inner Circle.” This is an interesting move for a company that built its smartphone business mostly on Android phones, but to quote the Virgin Mobile website, “There’s iPhone. And then there’s everything else.” Joining the Inner Circle will also net customers some special offers on other Virgin services, such as Virgin’s airlines and hotel chains. And the incentives don’t stop there.

New customers that sign up for Inner Circle service will only have to pay $1 for an entire year of unlimited talk, texting, and data. After the first year, the price will shoot up to $50/month for the same service. This plan is only available to Virgin Mobile customers that are approved for the Inner Circle, buy an iPhone, and sign up for AutoPay. Wary users can trial the service and iPhone for 14 days and will be fully refunded if they return the device.

Virgin will offer several different iPhone models, including the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, and the iPhone SE. Each device can be purchased in a multitude of different colors, like Rose Gold, Space Gray, or Red. If you’re interested, head over to Virgin's Inner Circle page here for more details.

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