A View on View :: Virgin Canada Drops Pre-Paid Prices

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Virgin Canada Drops Pre-Paid Prices

by Mark Evans on Thu 29 Sep 2005 06:48 PM EDT | Permanent Link

Just when you thought Canada's wireless industry had all agreed (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) to "pricing stability", Virgin Mobile Canada comes and wrecks the party by offering a new pre-paid plan featuring 10¢ a minute calls (plus a 40¢ a day fee). It's a huge drop given Virgin was charging 25¢ for the first five minutes and 15¢ afterwards. So what does it mean? For one, the CEOs of the big three- Telus, Bell Mobility and and Rogers - probably had a collective temper tantrum, crossed Virgin Canada CEO Andrew Black of their Christmas lists and did some ARPU recalculations. As for Virgin, it's difficult to tell what it means. The 10¢ a minute plan - known as Day2Day - is part of the Virgin U.S. rate package so the Canadian offering is not new. Then again, you hear so little about how Virgin is doing in Canada - partly because the target audience is the teen set and that's a demographic I have no insight into. If you talk to Rogers and Telus, they'll tell you their pre-paid sales have not been affected but I wouldn't expect them to say otherwise.

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Re: Virgin Canada Drops Pre-Paid Prices

by telco_guy on Fri 30 Sep 2005 09:48 AM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

It spells desperation. When cheeky advertising and being a champion of the little guy doesn't work, drop your pants on price.

They want number portability faster, yet their business plan is predicated on first time phone users. Why do first time phone users need number portability?

Perhaps they need number portability faster because when someone leaves a pre-paid service provider, the paid balance stays with the old carrier.

Their business model is flawed. They chose the wrong underlying carrier, and now, with no pricing power, they'll be done before number portability is implemented.

Re: Virgin Canada Drops Pre-Paid Prices

by Andrew on Fri 30 Sep 2005 10:08 AM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Useless product for anyone other than the teen set, it doesn't roam in the US and suprisingly it doesn't roam in the UK either.

Re: Re: Virgin Canada Drops Pre-Paid Prices

by telco_guy on Fri 30 Sep 2005 02:33 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Just as the US and UK Virgin customers can't roam here either.

Try to do that in "4 months" Sir Branson!

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\n"; #File retrieval failed - exiting function pass back old values. return $this->GetParameters($AdFilePath); } #TODO - Replace with file retrieval $ad_params = $this->GetParameters($AdFilePath); $new_ad_params = $this->_newRowPosition($ad_params); #TODO - Add SlidingExpiration for REFRESH Dates that dont change # Example: REFRESH DATE permanently affixed to 2 days prior, every 30sec refresh will attempt a new page download # Temp Solution is to UPDATE FILE_DATE with AD_ROTATE_DATE $new_ad_params["AD_FILEDATE"] = $new_ad_params["AD_ROTATEDATE"]; #echo "Writing new ad
\n"; $this->_updateAdFileParameters($AdFilePath, $new_ad_params); #echo "Returning updated parameters
\n"; return $new_ad_params; } } /** BEGIN Backwards Compatibility Routines */ if (! function_exists('array_combine')) { function array_combine($keys, $values) { foreach($keys as $key) $out[$key] = array_shift($values); return $out; } } if (!function_exists('fputcsv')) { function fputcsv($filePointer, $dataArray, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { // Write a line to a file // $filePointer = the file resource to write to // $dataArray = the data to write out // $delimeter = the field separator // Build the string $string = ""; // No leading delimiter $writeDelimiter = FALSE; foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) { // Replaces a double quote with two double quotes $dataElement=str_replace("\"", "\"\"", $dataElement); // Adds a delimiter before each field (except the first) if($writeDelimiter) $string .= $delimiter; // Encloses each field with $enclosure and adds it to the string $string .= $enclosure . $dataElement . $enclosure; // Delimiters are used every time except the first. $writeDelimiter = TRUE; } // end foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) // Append new line $string .= "\n"; // Write the string to the file return fwrite($filePointer,$string); } } if (!function_exists('fgetcsv')) { #TODO - Remove or ??? #Originally built to handle PHP4 style of fgetcsv $CSVstruct = array('Sep' => ','); function fgetcsv($handle, $length=1024, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { $rows = ParseCSVStream(fgets($handle),"\n",false); return $rows[0]; } } // append a CSV row containing data converted from source array $data. Actual conversion is done by ExCSVRowWalker() function AppendCSVRow($data) { global $CSVstruct; array_walk($data,'ExCSVRowWalker'.($CSVstruct['OutEOL']=="\n"?'N':'')); $CSVstruct['File'] .= implode($CSVstruct['Sep'],$data).$CSVstruct['OutEOL']; } // returns an array of rows (each row being an array of columns) with parsed data. Returns false when conversion fails. Auto-detects Win/Mac/*nix newline characters, which are converted all to the sequence specified (defaults to $CSVstruct['OutEOL']) for your convenience. function ParseCSVStream($data, $newline="\n", $associative=true) { global $CSVstruct; $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\r","\n",str_replace("\r\n","\n",$data)); if ($newline!="\n") $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\n",$newline,$CSVstruct['File']); $CSVstruct['OutEOL'] = $newline; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = 0; $CSVstruct['Error'] = false; $CSVstruct['EOF'] = false; $res = array(); if ($associative) { $titles = ParseCSVRow(); while (($row = ParseCSVRow())!==false) { $newa = array(); //possible optimization: might use array_combine() - requires PHP 5 for ($col = 0; $col0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',str_replace($CSVstruct['OutEOL'],"\n",$item)).'"'; } function ExCSVRowWalkerN(&$item) { if (!is_numeric($item)&&(strlen($item)>0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',$item).'"'; } // read next line from buffer. function RowInput() { global $CSVstruct; if ($CSVstruct['EOF']) { return ""; } else { $pos = strpos($CSVstruct['File'], $CSVstruct['OutEOL'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); if ($pos===false) { $CSVstruct['EOF'] = true; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); } else { $pos1 = $CSVstruct['Seek']; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = $pos+1; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$pos1,$pos-$pos1); }; }; } /** Initialize ad_network variable */ $ad_logic = new ad_logic($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); $ad_network = $ad_logic->ad_network($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); ?>