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- Kate Moss Signs Contract With Virgin Mobile... spotlightingnews.com | Mobile Rehabilitation services | Mobile Rehabilitation services India |... indicurerehabilitation.co... | Find Yoga Classes in Australia - Australia Yoga - Yoga in Australia yogafinder.com | Hip Resurfacing - Virgin Islands Hip Surgery Patient Education, Hip pain... virginislandsorthopaedics... |
Virgin Mobile Australia (VMA) is a telecommunications company based in Sydney, Australia. They sell through over 3500 retail outlets, including flagship stores in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as via telesales and web-based stores. VMA offers pre-paid, monthly and CAP plans for mobile phones. It also has two wireless broadband products: Broadband At Home and Mobile Broadband.
[edit] HistoryVMA was founded in October, 2000, as a 50/50 business partnership between Virgin Mobile UK and Optus. VMA were Australia's first Mobile Virtual Network Operator. In this case the arrangement was to use the Optus network infrastructure but with Virgin management of all aspects of the customer experience including branding of products, customer service and billing. As of late changes are being implemented to move all of the customer service to an offshore office in Manila, any remaining customer service that remains in Sydney will be moved to Optus to reduce costs. This has not thrilled customers and resulted in many complaints to the [TIO]. In 2002, Virgin Mobile UK increased its shareholding to 74.15 per cent.[1] after Optus refused to inject more cash into the operations. Optus was reported to have lost $AU116 million from the operation since the joint venture began. [2] At the end of 2005, VMA claimed over 300,000 customers. In January 2006, Optus bought all other shares in the business, and VMA became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Optus. A long-term licensing agreement is now in place for the business to continue trading under the Virgin brand. In April 2006, VMA were merged with SIMplus and M8, other Optus subsidiaries. The new entity, still trading as Virgin Mobile Australia, now claims a customer base of over 500,000 customers. [edit] ProductsVMA offers pre-paid, monthly and CAP plans for mobile phones. Their online-only prepaid product, Bean Counter has won Australian Money Magazine 2007 Best of the Best Gold Medal for Low-User plans. These products include all modern telecommunications features such as mobile phone calls, SMS, Multimedia Messaging Service, voicemail, international calls, global roaming, ringtones and Java games. In April 2007, VMA launched its 3G service including mobile web browsing, email and data services. In August 2007, Virgin Mobile launched the Virgin Broadband (Australia) service, offering two products: Broadband at Home (a bundle service including a fixed phone equivalent plus broadband), and Mobile Broadband (a portable USB modem). Both products utilise the Optus 3G wireless network. In August 2008, VMA became the fourth major telco in Australia to begin selling the new Apple iPhone 3G. [edit] Advertising campaignsSince its inception, VMA has been associated with several innovative and award-winning advertising campaigns, as perhaps expected for a company connected to a very strong international brand.
[edit] Flickr advertising issueVMA's 2007 national advertising campaign - 'Are You With Us Or What?' - has used images from Yahoo's popular image sharing site, Flickr, without the consent of the subjects, resulting in media speculation about the possibility of legal conflict. The uploaders did give permission for the use of the photo by assigning the Creative Commons license to the photos.[3] One of the uploaders, Molly Herzschlag, stated on her weblog that, "What they (Virgin Mobile) failed to do was get permission from the people in the photos ... Not sure what the next step will be legal-wise, if any, but I'm looking into it ... This is not the kind of famous I had in mind."[3] [edit] Corporate sponsorshipsVMA are the major sponsor of the Australian V Festival - a major music festival held in Sydney, Gold Coast, Melbourne, and Perth. VMA also sponsor local community aid organisations Stretch-a-family and South Sydney Youth Services. [edit] References
[edit] See also[edit] External links
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