What do you get when you cross an MVNO that struggles to make a profit with another MVNO that struggles to make a profit? We might find out, as Virgin Mobile is in talks to acquire Helio. Well, it might not be that simple. See, SK Telecom, the company that owns Helio, wants to make a bigger imprint in the U.S. So things might get a bit complicated.

There was a time when the major carriers didn’t care much about their prepaid divisions. This is part of the reason carriers didn’t so much mind leasing wholesale minutes to MVNOs. They filled a niche that the nationwide carriers could not afford to focus on. Something happened last year, though. The big carriers started to take better care of their prepaid divisions. We’ve seen each of the Big Four improve their prepaid offerings. Combined with their nationwide coverage, this is helping them outshine the little guys.

We keep hearing about grocery store MVNOs — namely Hy-Vee and H-E-B. And since I haven’t heard word of them shutting down, it appears that they may be onto something. Another one has reared its head: Meijer, a Midwest chain with 181 supercenters in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky.

I’ve got a ton of telecom blogs in my feed readers, and it has come to my attention that many sites have been touting a new plan from Boost Mobile. It comes from a press release, kind of like this one. If you’ll remember, Boost introduced this $1/day Chat plan three months ago. Hence the lack of announcement here on Prepaid Reviews. But we just wanted to make sure you didn’t think we were neglecting it or anything. Oh, and they did add one new feature.

Last year, T-Mobile rolled out its Hotspot @Home service. The idea is that if you have a WiFi enabled T-Mobile phone, you can set up your home router so that your phone can make calls over your Internet connection. Kind of like a VoIP client on your computer, except it works with your mobile. You pay a flat monthly rate for the service, and all of your calls made at home (over the WiFi) are free. Yesterday, Rogers announced a similar service. This will extend to Fido customers as well, allowing them to conserve minutes by making free calls from home.

iLocus conducted a survey of MVNOs to find out which ones were mulling mobile VoIP options. For those unfamiliar, VoIP — voice over Internet protocol — allows you to make voice calls over an Internet connection. While Skype is one of the most recognizable names in VoIP, many major cable companies, including Cablevision, Comcast, and Verizon, offer voice services which are a beefed up VoIP. So it turns out that nearly a quarter of MVNOs are offering or trialling mobile VoIP services, and over two thirds plan to have the service in place by 2010.

I was just thinking the other day: What happened to the Qwest deal? The MVNO has been looking for a better carrier agreement since late February. We’ve heard that they talked to Verizon, as well as AT&T. They have ended up with the most sensible option, Verizon, in a five-year agreement which will begin this summer. The catch is that they might not really be an MVNO anymore.

Virgin Mobile released their quarterly report yesterday, and let’s just say that as far as subscriber numbers go, it wasn’t all that pretty. They did report earnings of $0.07 per share, so that’s a positive. At least that’s what CEO Dan Schulman is telling us. But, as fans of the consumer side of the business, we’re more interested in the subscriber data. So let’s see where Virgin Mobile fell short of last year.

Continuing their aggressive expansion of 2008, Leap Wireless has announced an expansion of their network in Texas. This will bring Cricket wireless coverage to a number of new markets, including Beaumont, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Laredo, and McAllen. The flip switches tomorrow. This adds to Leap’s already wide coverage in the state, which includes Houston, Bryan/College Station, Temple/Kileen, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso.

I’m not sure if everyone else’s high school did this, but back when I was 16 they brought a drunk driving simulator to the parking lot. It was a car rigged so they could delay the reaction time between turning the wheel and them actually turning. We had fun trying to beat the system, and flattened a good share of cones in the process. I’m not sure if the students at Hermitage High School in Virginia did something like that when they simulated distracted driving situations. Among the distractions: Text messaging.