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High-Priced Virgin
By Peter Lewis

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Virgin Mobile is pushing my buttons. The company's new pay-as-you-go wireless plan, coupled with the Audiovox 8500 flip phone, is aimed squarely at teens and twenty-somethings, and not at squares like me. Like, I call Virgin Mobile "Central Intelligence" to active my Vox 8500, and a perky agent named Jessie goes, "Hi, Pete!" She asks me my zip code, my last name, and the year I was born. Long pause, then: "Omigod, you're the same age as my dad!" Thanks. Virgin's "fun, sexy, and not looking for commitment" pricing plan doesn't require a contract. It lets me "top up" my account with money when I run low on minutes. (The password reminder includes questions like "What's your real hair color?" Is "bald" a color?) But it's hardly da bomb: The first ten minutes of talk each day are billed at 25 cents each. Additional minutes are a dime per. Yak just ten minutes every day and your monthly tab is, like, $75! The 8500 ($130), though, is off the hizzy fo' shizzy. The phone is tiny, plays polyphonic Top 20 ring tones, and glows different colors. Pay extra, and you get tunes from MTV and and even a feature called Rescue Ring. Virgin says, "Users can program their phones to ring at a specific time to help them escape from a boring situation, such as a family reunion or a bad blind date!" Sweet. Maybe I can use it in meetings.