Virgin Mobile to end SuperTab, will increase price plans and launch 2-year agreements on August 1st

TELUS is the first carrier to come out and announce plans to shed 3-year contract terms and shift towards a 2-year. The official go live date is on July 30th and will see a change in hardware pricing and monthly rate plans – see the full details here.

Bell and Rogers have not revealed their plans yet. We posted news that Bell plans on going live on Wednesday, July 17th, and also Rogers will unveil their strategy ‘shortly.’ We’ve now been informed that Virgin Mobile is also going to move towards a 2-year strategy in the coming weeks. According to an internal doc we received it states that Virgin will be “Saying goodbye to our old pal, Virgin Mobile SuperTab” on August 1st, 2013. In addition, Virgin plans on “Increasing the price on all our plans by $5.” This includes their Silver, Gold and Platinum.

All the plans will have the same features, just a different pricing structure. From what I can tell the Silver Plans will start off at $30 and increase to $55/month, plus offer up “Up to $200 off the retail price of your phone” (which is an increase of $50). The Gold Plans begin at $44 and go upward to $60/month, then give “Up to $300 off the retail price of your phone.” Finally, the Platinum Plans give a whopping “Up to $700 off the retail price of your phone” and range from $60 to $100/month.

Virgin notes that “Dearly Beloved Team Member…do not despair! We’re still the same Virgin Mobile you, and our Members fell in love with. As you know, our industry is as exciting as it is ever-evolving! We know price increases aren’t easy, but we’ll continue to bring the heat! Moving to 2 Year Agreements will allow us to provide Members with the flexibility to upgrade to a hotter smartphone when the time is right! (Who doesn’t love a hot, shiny new phone?) Meanwhile, nothing else changes to how we do business!”

Looks for this in a couple weeks… we’ll update you once we receive more info.
(Thanks tipster!)