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Wal-Mart To Launch Unlimited Wireless Family Plan
adeelarshad82 writes "Wal-Mart has announced that it will sell a post-paid wireless service powered by T-Mobile, which will be targeted at families. Users who sign up for Wal-Mart Family Mobile service will not have to sign a contract. The first line will cost $45 per month, and each additional line will cost $25 per month. Each line will have unlimited talk and text, so overage charges will not be an issue. For data access, each phone will come pre-loaded with a 100MB card known as a WebPak, which is shared among all lines on an account. Data does not expire, and refill cards can be purchased in Wal-Mart stores or online. The WebPak can also be used to make international calls at 5 cents per minute to any landline number in about a dozen countries."
Hell, two lines, unlimited voice, and paying extra for even 200MB of data would still be a hell of lot cheaper than what AT&T is offering now for a "family" iPhone plan.
When I traveled to Hong Kong and London w/ my unlocked iPhone I picked up prepaid SIMs for around $15 that were more than enough to cover voice and data while traveling, and were substantially less expensive than what I'm locked into at home in the US.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Somehow I doubt Wal-Mart is going to drive AT&T and Verizon out of the wireless marketplace.....
Besides, the criticism that you've made applies more to Barnes and Noble than Wal-Mart. I've not personally observed Wal-Mart raising their prices after driving the competition away. I did observe Barnes and Noble jack up all their prices shortly after the last independent book store in my home town closed up shop.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So says Ars Technica, anyway. I don't know much about the market for mobile Internet, but $40 per gigabyte sounds unbelievable. I'm just passing on what I've read.
Really "unbeleivable"? I've had an iphone for about a year now. According to its usage statistics I've used:
13,140 minutes
475 MB of data
426 MB of tethered data
1GB for $40 will apparently cover me for a year at a time. Instead I pay some $20bucks a month or something for the data plan.
I'm not a video on my phone junkie, and I don't get my email on my phone either. (I get too damn much of it, and really important stuff... I'll get a phone call anyway.)
Everyone jump on the walmart hating bandwagon why don't you. I have an Aunt that worked at walmart as a checker for most of her life. She was a single mom and that job bought her a house and helped her raise 5 children (father was a deadbeat) then Walmart paid, in full, the entire college tuition of her eldest daughter through a program walmart has. If you don't want to buy Chinese made crap, then don't Walmarts selling what people want to buy. This cellular plan is a fine example of exactly what they do. We all know cellular plans are ridiculously over priced... look at any other country in the world and it's obvious. Walmart comes in and not only undercuts everyone else, they undercut them to the point it makes the other carriers look like idiots. And just like every other market they enter, this doesnt just mean walmart shoppers get lower prices, it means all the other carriers will have to drop their prices as well to prevent their customers from leaving in droves.
WalMart's been growing since they were called "Walton's Five and Dime" simply because they didn't gouge consumers.
I love how when suddenly a company starts offering a product for less than what people were contently paying for it before, all of a sudden all the places offering it at the old price were "gouging consumers".
Is it so hard to fathom that to produce certain things properly actually has a cost? And if someone else comes around selling for less than that, that maybe they're the "bad guys"? Either by virtue of selling below cost, or doing unethical/immoral things to get the price lower.
Like a previous poster said: consumers prioritize price above all else. Apparently so... including common sense.
When local milk farmers, who I assure you are honest hard-working people who are not price-gouging, can't even break-even, something's horribly wrong.