The cheap cell phone plan service, RingPlus Mobile, announced recently that it would begin accepting crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin as payments for its low cost mobile phone plans.
RingPlus is an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) that uses the Sprint network. It offers a wide range of wireless plans that start as low as $1.99 per month up to $33 per month. While the company does not offer its own phones for sale, it does allow you to bring any Sprint device to the service. Read the RingPlus review here.
Apparently RingPlus’ community has been very vocal about accepting cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, and the company took the suggestion to heart becoming the first wireless carrier to accept Bitcoin. The CEO of RingPlus had this to say:
“Accepting popular coins as a form of payment directly aligns with how the millennial generation wants to take control of their money,” said Steve Beauregard. “RingPlus clearly understands this trend and has taken the innovative steps to embrace what digital currency have to offer.”
It should be noted that at the moment Bitcoin can only be used to top-up an existing account and that to initially register for the service a credit card is still needed. Although the CEO has stated in their forums that they will fully integrate the accepted cryptocurrencies into their registration process in the near future.
Personally I think this is a great move for RingPlus and certainly a big PR win for them. To be honest, I haven’t even heard of RingPlus up until now and if it hadn’t been for the news about them accepting Bitcoin I probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to them. However, now that I’ve had a chance to check them out, their cheap mobile phone plans look great and offer a very nice range of options for frugal minded folks regardless of whether you pay with crypto currency or not.
It will certainly be interesting to see which cell phone companies accept Bitcoin moving forward, especially given the incredibly fierce competition amongst upstart MVNO mobile phone carriers trying to carve out their own niche.
I’ll be updating this post in the future as new mobile phone companies begin taking Bitcoin as to provide a useful resource for you crypto nuts out there. So if you happen to find a wireless company accepting a cryptocurrency that I don’t have listed yet then please let me know in in the comments below.