Virgin's new ‘Uncarrier’ 12-month handset repayments

Virgin Mobile now offer no contract customers the option to spread the cost of a phone over 12 monthly installments, similar to T-Mobile’s Uncarrier innovative in the U.S last year.

Now, when choosing a phone to buy through the Virgin Mobile site customers can choose to either buy upfront at full price, sign a 24-month contract, or pay for the phone over 12-months. With this new option, customers can cancel their service at any time and pay out the balance of the phone in full.

This is the same concept behind what is the cornerstone of T-Mobile’s huge Uncarrier campaign in the U.S. last year: separating the installment costs of phones and plans to remove contracts as a pain point for customers — and to minimise the cost of phone subsidies on the telco.

Importantly, the only Virgin plan option where the cost of the phone is subsidised is the 24-month option. The 12-month option spreads the full retail price of the phone equally over the time period.

The 12-month payment option isn’t available on all phone plans either; the iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 are examples of devices available only on 24-month contracts at the moment.

Virgin SIM-only plans

We think this could be the beginning of an important change for phone shopping in Australia. You do have to pay full price for the phone, but in interest-free installments, which seems fair.

To choose this option you have to bundle in a Virgin SIM-only plan, which on the surface look pretty uncompetitive. There are only 3 options available: $20, $30 and $35 per month options, with the most expensive option including just 1GB data and $500 worth of calls and SMS, or about 200 two-minute calls and 150 SMS per month.

The trick is that extra data is available as an optional extra, and you should strongly consider this. Data is priced roughly at $10 per GB, so at $45 with 2GB, the plans start looking a bit more like the competition.

If you choose to take a chance with a new smartphone and 1GB of data or less, be aware that Virgin charge 5.2c per MB for excess data use. This works out at $52 per GB.

Joseph Hanlon

Editorial Director | X | LinkedIn

Joe Hanlon has been immersed in mobile phones, plans and the internet for over a decade, having written for publications like CNET, Techradar, Gizmodo and Lifehacker. He steers the editorial ship and makes sure that we are always serving up the most useful guides and recommendations. If you ever bump into Joe on the street, don't be afraid to ask for a phone recommendation. It's embarrassing how much he enjoys talking about this stuff. He also loves listening to podcasts, so feel free to email Joe with recommendations.

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