Virgin Mobile had roled out a new Tarif for daily InterWeb surfing – it’s called the casual users tariff, and will be available for both contract and PAYG customers. The daily limit is 25MB, although it remains to be seen whether Virgin would enforce this.

As Tech Digest neatly point out, for those that are just checking Facebook or similar, this could be an ideal tariff – those going large on net access each day could probably find a better Tariff to put themselves on.

Virgin is also offering a new mobile portal to try and entice users online, after research they did showed that only 7% of users are accessing the Mobile Web (maybe it for reasons like this?)

Anyhoo, the new casual user tariff will be available from 8th December, after which you should be able to find a lot more info here.

[Via: Tech Digest]

On the heels of their successful BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Pearl 8130 release, Virgin Mobile Canada has officially released the BlackBerry Curve 8330. Canadians can now pick one up for only $49.99 on a 3-year plan. If the 3-year gig isn’t your deal, you can also get it for $329.99 (2-year), $379.99 (1-year) and $429.99 (30 days). Virgin Mobile Canada also offers basic BlackBerry bundles starting at $15 per month for unlimited email and instant messaging (You can check out all of Virgin Mobile Canada’s BlackBerry Bundles right here).

Also worthy of note is Virgin Mobile will include an 8GB memory card with the device, while supplies last. Not bad!

Key Features of the Virgin Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8330:

For full details head on over to VirginMobile.ca

[Via: MobileSyrup]

Following on the company’s announcement of a successful Q3 2008, Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: VM) has cut some 10% of their workforce. Virgin Mobile USA doled out walking papers to 45 employees from their New Jersey and California offices, citing a “duplication of assignments.”

It was only a matter of time before Virgina Mobile USA made good on plans to cut some of the fat associated with their acquisition of Helio earlier this year. With Helio and Virgin Mobile USA staff vying for essentially the same jobs, it would stand to reason that newly acquired Helio’s employees would be the first to get cut.

As we head into an unknown holiday shopping season, it’s possible that further job cuts are in store for Virgin Mobile USA.

[Via: MobileCrunch]

Virgin Mobile USA apparently made a good move in their decision to acquire defunct post-paid wireless carrier Helio. Following a negative 2Q 2008 that had costs associated with the Helio acquisition dragging down Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: VM)’s bottom line, the affordable wireless carrier has announced a profitable 3Q 2008.

Virgin Mobile USA added 821,491 gross subscribers to its network, representing an 8% year-on-year increase in subscriber additions. Their expanded customer base helped Virgin Mobile pull in $4.1 million in profits for the third quarter, easing the blow of the carrier’s $7.4 million loss last quarter.

The financial announcement proves that the wireless industry might prove to be a profitable safe-harbor in a rough economic sea.

[Via: RCR]

Local.com and Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: VM) recently launched the Local Mobile service, an ad-supported local mobile site that provides users with easy access to directory services and search results for local businesses, products and services via their mobile internet service.

Local Mobile enables users to access:

• Local business information based on simple “what” and “where” directory search
• Business profile pages, complete with mapping
• Driving directions
• Click-to-call functionality
• Listings sent to a mobile phone or device via SMS
• Results sorted by relevance, distance or name

Commenting on the announcement, Virgin Mobile USA’s Yomi Uaboi said: “Virgin Mobile USA is happy to offer Local Mobile to our customers as we continue to broaden the depth of local based services and advertising search capabilities. We know this is an area that many of our customers are looking to their wireless carrier to provide, as part of their on-the-go lifestyle.”

Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: VM) has announced new prepaid international calling rates to Latin America, Asia, and other markets across the globe.

Under the new “pricing scheme,” Virgin Mobile USA customers can make calls to Brazil and parts of
Mexico, Venezuela, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan for only two cents per minute. Calls to Argentina, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Bangladesh, India, South Korea and Thailand are five cents per minute.

In the same release, Virgin reminds us of their international SMS offering. It costs twenty cents to send and 10 cents to receive a message in more than 170 countries worldwide.

Information about the new international calling rates are available from here, while you can get more information about international texting from here.

Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: VM) has made a new useful service available to its subcribers. Using Slifter, users can shop smart and fast by searching over 300 million products at more than 150,000 local and online retailers, seeing price and availability, and getting detailed directions to the nearest store.

As the leader in local mobile shopping, Slifter allows users to: find hot deals and products nearby, create a mobile shopping list packed with favorite products and promotions, and spread the savings around to friends and family.

Slifter is immediately available on all Virgin Mobile USA phones at no additional charge on VirginXL plan and the mobile web.

Back in June of last year, we saw Sprint making Slifter available to its users…

The BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Pearl was out not long ago on Virgin Mobile Canada, and it looks like they’ve had a good enough run with it to pick up the BlackBerry Curve. It should be available in November for $99 on a three-year plan. Their bare-bones $15 unlimited e-mail plan is on par with any of the other Canadian carriers, but their other BlackBerry bundles are more than competitive. Good on Virgin Mobile for expanding their BlackBerry porfolio – now it’s just a matter of getting the World Edition 8830 to complete the set.

The 2008 Mobile Choice Awards went down last night, and the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) E71 went home as the big winner, but Samsung did pretty well for itself, too. Other notables include…

• Phone of the Year: Nokia E71
• Best Smartphone: Nokia E71
• Best Manufacturer: Samsung
• Best Cameraphone: Samsung i8510
• Best Music Phone: Samsung F400
• Readers’ Choice: iPhone 3G
• Operator of the Year: O2 (NYSE: TEF)
• Best Customer Service: Virgin Mobile (for eight years running!)

What do you guys think? Fair choices? Obviously I’m partial to the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Bold for Best Smartphone, but having had some face time with the E71, I can certainly say its construction is a notch above.

[via Mobile Today]

See, these pics beat the snot out of those blurry leaked ones from May. The dual-sliding Helio Ocean 2, not due out until 2009, went through the FCC ringer in March and dropped some pictures along the way.  It’s looking a helluva lot sleeker, although still a bit chubby to accommodate all the extreme sliding going on. It’ll be packing a 2 megapixel camera, 3G over EVDO, a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard and standard slider number pad. It will be interesting to see if Virgin’s handling of the Ocean 2 launch can bring Helio back onto its feet…

[PhoneScoop via MobileCrunch]

More pics of the Helio Ocean 2 after the jump!