can you buy a united kingdom virgin mobile phone and activate it in the us

maybe...call virgin mobile and ask

Probably not. In the UK they offer a kind of service that uses SIM Cards (like Cingular or T-Mobile in the US). Unlike the US, in the UK every cell phone company uses GSM or WCDMA (basically a different band of GSM and is unrelated to the US's technology CDMA). In the US virgin mobile uses PCS and CDMA (both of which are used by Verizon and Sprint as well as other resellers). If the virgin mobile phone is unlocked it may be able to be activated on Cingular or T-Mobile network.

Yeah, Virgin Mobile USA won't work with Virgin Mobile UK and Vice Versa. Virgin Mobile USA uses Sprints CDMA network, VMo UK uses I think T-Mobile's GSM network across the pond. So uh uh, you're stuck with VMo's junky phones.