Oct 23, 2009 7:52 pm US/Eastern
Tech Minute: Wal-Mart Joins Prepaid Phone Boom
by NATALI DEL CONTE, CNet.com
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Forget the long-term contracts and complicated payment plans, thanks to the boom in prepaid cell phone options.
Companies like Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA sell prepaid cell phone service, but they have a new competitor that you might not expect: Wal-Mart.
Prepaid cell phones now comprise 20 percent of the wireless phone market, but the plans are not for everybody.
"I had a prepaid phone and I used to spend like $20 a week buying minutes, and that was too much," Ruby Ruiz says.
"Our bill is always $20 more than it is supposed to be, so my husband would be happy with a paid plan," Ginny Moore says.
If you head into an AT&T store, you can walk out with a pretty nice phone – but you'll also get a two-year contract, complete with early termination fees and a credit check.
Nowadays, prepaid phones come without all of that, which is why they're becoming more and more popular as a cell phone option.
Wal-Mart is now offering a prepaid service called Wal-Mart Straight Talk, a pay-as-you-go talk and text program that comes with a phone, a charger and not much else.
"Straight Talk is offering two price plans. The first is $30 for 1,000 text messages and 1,000 anytime minutes – that's sufficient for a lot of people," CNet editor Kent German says. "The next is $45, which is unlimited text and unlimited messaging."
iPhone users pay about $100 each month, and use up to 50 percent more data than the average cell phone user. Prepaid phones won't come with similar bells and whistles – they'll just get you a phone that tells you the time, sends your text messages and lets you take and make calls.
"The phones that will be offered with these plans tend to be lower end – they're not going to have touch screen, they're not going to have video players," German says. "They're also phones that have been around quite a while as well."
Wal-Mart Straight Talk is a Mobile Virtual Network operators, meaning that it uses another network's cell towers. In Wal-Mart's case, customers will be on the Verizon network, which most New Yorkers agree has the best coverage in the city.
CNet recently started testing cell phone reception and offering coverage maps. New York is one of eight cities for which CNet has mapped coverage for all of the major carriers, including Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint.
If you're convinced that you don't get reception at your house, the map can confirm that you're not imagining things. To find the maps, click
here.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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