WhistleOut fast facts
- Virgin Plus no longer offers prepaid options for new activations.
- Current Virgin Plus prepaid customers can still access their plans.
- The move reflects a more significant shift in the industry, with the Big Three consolidating their flankers’ brand identities
Virgin Plus, a flanker brand operating on the nationwide Bell network, discontinued its prepaid plans on September 30, 2024. According to Virgin, existing prepaid customers will not see any changes to their plans and will still be able to top up and extend their service.
Virgin Plus has said little about the sudden change, breaking the news in a brief post on the carrier’s community forum. We contacted Virgin Plus customer service for a comment, but a representative in the prepaid division told us they had no explanation for the sudden change.
Image: Virgin Plus
The Virgin Plus website now directs prospective prepaid customers to the carrier’s postpaid plans, though those options are generally more expensive. The cheapest option is the $19 Plan, though its features are meager: unlimited Canada-wide texting, 100 Canada-wide minutes, and 250MB of 3G data.
Sudden rebrand follows shift in market
Virgin Plus’ sudden elimination of prepaid plans shouldn’t come as a surprise. In the past year, the Big Three of Rogers, Bell, and Telus have rebranded their flankers’ branding, limiting prepaid options to a single carrier on their respective networks.
Fido similarly abandoned prepaid activations, and the carrier’s website now directs prospective customers to Chatr, another flanker on the Rogers network. Public Mobile avoids “prepaid” altogether, preferring the more regal “subscription” and leaving the prepaid distinction to its sister brand Koodo, which offers several prepaid plans, including some of the best in Canada.
Kevin Kearney
Kevin is an experienced journalist and writer whose musings on tech, education, and culture have appeared in Stereogum, InsideHook, The Millions, and elsewhere. As Deputy Editor for WhistleOut, he offers unique expertise on the inner workings of the mobile industry, and has a particular passion for emerging efficiencies within smartphone apps. When he’s not researching the telecom market, he enjoys reading, running, and playing music.
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