Sprint Buys Virgin Mobile

While this might be old news, we've been in mourning over the buyout of Virgin Mobile by Sprint Nextel. Does this mean innovation for Sprint, or a step backwards for Virgin Mobile? 

Historically, Sprint hasn't been seen as an innovator on service or phones, as evidenced by their churn rates over the past two years. Terrible customer service and lack of innovative handsets have their customers leaving in droves, in some years capping the one million mark. With stock prices  hovering over $4 USD, is this a good move for Sprint?

Virgin Mobile does have some brand recognition as a progressive prepaid company, agressively acquiring subscribers with its $49.99 unlimited plan and variety of handsets. Sprint lacks its own prepaid company, instead relying on Boost for its prepaid business. While Boost offers a $50 unlimited everything plan, it is built on Nextel's iDen network, which Sprint Nextel vowed to shut down in 2011 when it merged. By pulling Virgin Mobile into the mix, it has a ready platform to move prepaid subscribers from Boost to Virgin should that ever happen, without losing their subscriber base.

However, Sprint Nextel doesn't have a good track record for handling new acquistions, evidenced by their shrinking subscriber base (started at 58 milllion at merger, now counts 49 million subscribers). 

Hopefully, Sprint doesn't mess with the Virgin Mobile formula, allowing it to continue as it's own separate brand, separate customer service, and separate rules, and learns from their past acquistion mistakes. Virgin Mobile could be a huge win for Sprint, or a huge loss for Virgin Mobile customers.

Time will tell.