Just a few days ago Verizon made the less-than-shocking confirmation that DROID tethering was coming, but wouldn't say how much it would cost. Now that the hardest of hardcore fans are already waiting in line, disconnected from the world at large, the company is unleashing the bad news: it'll be $30. That doubles the cost of the required data plan that sits atop a subscriber's voice plan, meaning a total of $60 per month for "unlimited" data access on handset or laptop. Mind you, "unlimited" really means 5GB of data per, a total of 10 split between the two $30 plans. Glass ceilings: we hate them.

Back in our day, the kiddies all ran around with Helios, VK Mobile looked like it could be the next Pantech, and "Kickflip" was a phone, not a skateboarding move. Okay, fine -- we knew like one or two people that used Helio, VK Mobile never even made a dent in the US market, and skateboarding had a lock on kickflips long before the wireless industry did -- and actually, that perfect storm of bad news may have ultimately led the once-promising MVNO to the sad situation we have here today under Virgin Mobile's stewardship. Virgin has now all but erased the memory of Helio from its website, leaving just the Ocean and Mysto to soldier on -- and the phones now go by their ODM's names (Pantech and Samsung, respectively) rather than Helio proper. The strangest part is that the Ocean seems to have outlasted its replacement, the Ocean 2, which is now gone -- unless you hit up Virgin Mobile's Korean language site, a sub-brand in itself that it inherited from Helio and has a track record of giving members of the community better, faster access to hot devices. Any way you slice it, though, it never made sense for Virgin to run two brands -- Helio's fate was sealed the moment the sale was finalized, but considering the company's spot-on mantra of "bring awesome Asian phone tech to North America," we'll always have a soft spot in our hearts for these guys.

[Via MobileCrunch]

Last year, MetroPCS kicked off the respectably ballsy practice of inviting competitors' subscribers to bring their CDMA phones over to get flashed for use on its network, prompting Virgin -- a carrier that plays in the same value space as MetroPCS -- to take issue. Long story short, Virgin ended up filing a lawsuit against MetroPCS citing a couple claims: one, that MetroPCS is willfully interfering with Virgin's customer contracts, and two, that the flashing ultimately results in a trademark violation since Virgin's logo is still on the phone. Funny how law works, isn't it? Anyhow, a court's thrown out the contract claim but is allowing the trademark issue to proceed, making this an interesting one to watch. In the meantime, anyone looking at bailing to MetroPCS and planning on taking some hardware along for the ride might want to look into that sooner rather than later -- you never know what sorts of injunctions might come out of this.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse recently sat down for an interview with the master of one-on-ones and black backdrops, Charlie Rose, and while much of the talk was spent traveling down memory lane and revisiting Hesse's two-decade rise through the ranks at AT&T before fleeing in 2000, there were some great quotes that came out of it:

• "We're getting ready to launch a couple of new Android devices." We know one's the Hero, and the other -- if we were the betting types -- is the Samsung InstinctQ.
• Rose: "The merger with Nextel was a bad idea?" Hesse: "In 20 / 20 hindsight, it was, yes... the premium that Sprint paid for Nextel was too much." Sprint's gone back and forth on the idea of spinning off Nextel over the past couple years, so it's not a surprising thing for him to think -- but to hear Sprint's CEO actually say out loud that he thinks a very active part of its network shouldn't have become part of the company is a little bombastic.
• "Our prepaid brand is Boost." Nothing wild and crazy about that statement, though it does reaffirm that Virgin Mobile is destined for assimilation. The whole thing's kinda funny considering that Boost dabbled in CDMA before reversing course, and once again, Sprint will be dealing with large installed bases of both iDEN and CDMA prepaid customers.
• On touchscreen smartphones: "Those are the most expensive phones for us to sell, and those are the ones where we need to make sure that the customer stays with us [and] doesn't churn, because we're out a lot of money... those are expensive devices." Theoretically, an aggressively-priced subsidized smartphone could still end up leaving a carrier in the red if you broke your contract early on and paid the ETF, but we doubt that's a huge problem -- especially for a CDMA carrier like Sprint. He goes on to say "I'm already looking at 4G versions of smartphones," so that's really encouraging to hear, particularly if you're into WiMAX.
• "Customer will pay premium for simplicity. Simplicity is everything... Digital One Rate which we launched back at AT&T, that was all about simplicity... people paid more. It wasn't a price cut." Translation: "Unlimited makes you feel like you're getting a deal, but rest assured, we're banking."
• In response to Rose asking how Sprint uses the Palm Pre to take on Apple and RIM: "It was really kind of Palm's decision to take on Apple. And Palm has had [a] long standing relationship with Sprint." It's interesting to hear Hesse seemingly back away from a fight with Apple and chalk up the situation to happenstance -- RIM not as much, considering that Sprint carries a number of BlackBerrys in its lineup and will certainly continue to do so. Talking more about pitting the Pre against the iPhone, he goes on to say that Palm's handset is "doing well. But you've got to almost put the iPhone, to be fair, in a separate category. The Apple brand and that device has done so well. It's like comparing someone to Michael Jordan." If that's not a tactful acknowledgment that the iPhone is a bona fide wireless superstar, we don't know what is. Hesse's giving the iPhone the respect it's rightfully earned -- as any strategically-minded executive would.
• "The biggest impediment to mobile growth is you got processors are getting a lot faster, screens are getting sharper, they use more and more power, and battery technology is not moving very fast... That's the one breakthrough that the industry needs. It needs battery breakthroughs." It's good to hear that Hesse understands as well as everyone else that the wireless industry needs to be focused on making power draw a non-issue, but he sounds less convinced of the solution: "I don't know. Solar we hope, and renewable energy sources." When Sprint gets some cash socked away, it might consider throwing some R&D money at the problem -- it'll be first to market with something resembling a "national" 4G network, after all, and the situation's only going to get worse.

Who knew you'd find out so much about the inner workings of the States' third-largest carrier from watching PBS?

[Via Gizmodo]

We guess we can probably start to expect a lot of "synergies" between Sprint's lineup and Virgin's now that the two companies are in the process of uniting in holy matrimony, so here's a little sneak preview of what's to come. The Rumor 2 from LG -- which Sprint has had in the lineup for a few months now -- is coming to Virgin Mobile next, a tidbit revealed only by reading the fine print in its "Twitter Rumors" giveaway. Actually, you really didn't have to read that hard at all; you could've seen the "Twitter Rumor2 Giveaway Description" text at the top or made a simple deduction from the use of the word "rumor" in the contest's name, but anyhow, yeah, it's on the way. No word on price or date, but this particular contest ends on the 29th, so it's conceivable we could see an announcement before the month's out.

[Thanks, Stephen]

The Pre might have slowed the drain at Sprint but it hasn't managed to turn things around completely -- America's number three carrier posted a second-quarter loss of $384m as it lost another 257,000 subscribers. That just continues Sprint's trend of bleeding customers to the competition, and we doubt this balance sheet will turn around anytime soon -- not only will next quarter reflect the $483m purchase of Virgin Mobile USA, it's pretty clear that Verizon will get the Pre and AT&T will carry another webOS handset, leaving Mr. Hesse and crew without their shiny halo device to lure new subs to the fold. We'll see what Sprint does to turn this all around -- did someone say they need a Hero?

Remember Virgin Mobile? Sure you do -- not long ago the last-man-standing MVNO snapped up Helio, and seemed ready to take its place as one of the few boutique prepaid operations still... er, operating. Well that appears to be all but done and done, as Sprint has just announced a "definitive agreement" to purchase the company for $483 million worth of sweet, succulent stock (which looks to be right about what it was valued at to begin with). It looks like Sprint will pair the acquisition with its Boost Mobile brand, which till now was in direct competition with VM. It's not quite rival city, however, Virgin Mobile USA was launched as a joint venture with Sprint, and the MVNO glides on Dan Hesse's network as it is. Still, it does seem to be another indicator that the days of the MVNO are certainly on the wane, though Sprint now looks to own the space -- what little there is.

When you first click over to the Mantra's product page, your immediate thought is "why the hell would I pay $59.99 for this?" But then, it all comes back to you -- the fact that Virgin has no contracts, for example -- and you realize that it makes perfect sense that the MVNO would be charging a hair under $60 to get Bluetooth, a pair of color displays, and a VGA camera. In an age where heavy subsidies have become the norm, we bet it can be a tough sell for anyone coming from the world of postpaid, but then again, there's definitely something to be said for having the freedom to walk away after a couple months if you like. The Mantra's available now, and if you buy, don't bother bringing your signin' pen -- you won't need it.

Were it not for Helio, Virgin wouldn't be a carrier that we'd associate with anything other than the most basic handsets -- and data cards certainly don't seem like they'd be on any company exec's mind. Thing is, direct competitor Cricket recently got into this game with a $40 unlimited contract-free data plan, so it's a segment that's getting more difficult to ignore -- even in the most heavily value-weighted side of the business. We've nabbed a screen shot out of Best Buy's inventory system that shows a "Broadband 2GO" device (at least, we think that's what it says) scheduled to hit shelves on June 14 for $149.99 -- not the cheapest modem in the world, but again, there's no contract involved here. Data is data, so if the reception's good and the speeds are decent, why not?

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Sound familiar? Ultra-cheap unlimited plans are doing well (in some cases, too well) for everyone that's offering them these days, and it seems that Virgin is no exception to the rule. Following the April 15 launch of its $49.99 unlimited plan, the company announced during its earnings call this week that it's seen a five-times-over boost in unlimited plan adds (yeah, bargain pricing will do that), which dovetails nicely with the MVNO's claim earlier in the year that the crappy economy really set it up for big wins in '09. Notably, the quarter saw income rise 301 percent year-over-year to $19.1 million while operating revenues rose 2 percent to $337.3 million, so things are looking up for these guys just months after financials were looking weak -- so strong, in fact, that they've revised their full year cash flow and earnings upwards. Does this mean we get new Helio gear soon?

[Via mocoNews]

Virgin Mobile's sundry networks around the globe are a curious hodgepodge of locally-owned and Virgin-led ventures; in the States, for example, a bunch of random companies have skin in the game, including Sprint and SK Telecom. Up in Canada, the MVNO began life as a 50 / 50 joint venture between Bell and Virgin -- and Bell has now agreed to snap up Virgin's stake in the firm for CAD $142 million, which works out to about $121 million. To make sure the brand stays around for a good, long time to come, Bell has also announced that it has secured an "exclusive, long-term" licensing deal with Virgin to use the Virgin Mobile marque. It sounds like Bell has every intention of continuing to operate Virgin Mobile as a separate entity, though it'll combine some retail efforts and work to streamline operations by jointly acquiring handsets and the like. Considering that Bell's about to flip the switch on its HSPA network, it seems like this could end up working out swimmingly for Virgin subscribers up there.

[Via MobileSyrup]

As far as we can tell, this totally nondescript candybar that just "rocked" the FCC as the C300 from Haier doesn't appear under the official Virgin lineup by any catchy name yet, which would put it solidly in the unreleased, unannounced category. Our normal instinct when that happens is to get excited -- maybe break out the bubbly and celebrate our fascinating find with a night of sinful debauchery -- but in this case, this thing is so positively uninspiring that we're having trouble getting fired up about the ordeal. The phone's ugly (at best) and ultra low-end -- you won't even find a camera on this one -- so we're guessing you'll find this in your local CVS for $20 or so within a few weeks, quite possibly without the fanfare of an official press release. One thing we can say for certain: this won't be a Helio-branded device, if you catch our drift.

Update: Rich over at Phone Scoop points out that the C300 is CDMA800 only, which would seem to preclude it for action on Virgin Mobile USA; makes you wonder why they bothered with an FCC approval then, but who are we to question Haier's wisdom?

Hey Boost Mobile -- Where U At? Just kidding, we know where you are, but you should probably be aware that Virgin Mobile USA is encroaching all up in your territory. In a move that was undoubtedly made to rival Boost's $50 per month unlimited plan, Virgin Mobile has announced a $49.99 Unlimited Plan with zero roaming charges. Said plan will be available for talkative individuals starting on April 15th, though you should know that unlimited texting will run you an additional $10 per month -- something that Boost includes at no additional charge. Unique to VM's option, however, is the automaker-like "Pink Slip Protection," which offers to pay mobile bills for up to three months if you lose your job (and meet lots of requirements, of course). In related news, the operator is also introducing a new suite of "Texter's Delight" plans, obviously aimed at consumers who don't even understand that they can "speak" into their phone and "hear" other voices from the top.