Just ported both my folks over from Sprint to Virgin. And EGADS, what a pain in the ass.

Lessons learned:

--You can't just activate a Virgin Mobile handset online and expect a wireless portability option to pop up. I tried activating the first of two new phones and got a brand new Virgin Mobile phone number. You have to call into Virgin to port any numbers from your old carrier. You cannot do this online. Is it 2002 again and nobody told me?

--The call centers are in India, so you're going to be speaking to Indian reps. Which I had no problem with, since Indians speak the Queen's English (and better English than anyone in South Florida). How do they handle themselves as reps? Well, some were going by a script and weren't much help. And some were pretty decent reps who tried to get the job done but were apparently bamboozled by system glitches on their end. Total time to get the phones up and running after porting the numbers: about two days of off and on calling. I must've called in at least 10 times. Not exactly fun.

--Virgin's website is actually pretty straightforward and well laid out. If only you could port in numbers through the website and not through calling into Virgin.

If Virgin gets their customer service issues ironed out, I'd imagine they'll pull in quite a few new customers.

I'll make sure to update on the actual phone service after a month or so.

Oh, and I activated both my parents on Virgin's new $25 a month plan (300 min w/ unlimited messaging & email/data & web).

--Don