Hacker News Reader

Virgin Mobile[0] (Sprint's pay as you go provider) has the iphone 4S for $450, with unlimited text/data[1] plans starting at $35/mo.

[0] http://www.virginmobileusa.com/shop/cell-phones/iphone-phone...

[1] Where unlimited data really means 2.5GB at full speed, and then 256KBps afterwards.

edit: Uses Sprint not Verizon

View on HN

Virgin actually uses Sprint's network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Mobile_USA

Thanks for the correction, I've updated the original.

And where "full speed" means "limited to Sprint's comparatively weak 3G speeds or spotty 4G coverage".

(Not being able to stream a 360p YouTube video on 3G is kind of a pain.)

iPhones don't support WiMAX at all; the 4[s] on Sprint/Virgin will only ever hit EVDO.

There's a reason Sprint and Verizon were so much faster to market with WiMAX and LTE vs. AT&T and T-Mobile; EVDO doesn't age nearly as well as HSPA. (IIRC, EVDO was much earlier to market itself.)

EVDO was just an card change on the existing base station hardware, it meant in many cases no additional backhaul even on sprint the issue is excessively full backhaul - not Radio Access Network issues.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com