Is Wal-Mart Your New Cellmate?

• Report this Comment On October 15, 2009, at 4:06 PM, Aryabod wrote:

  The growth is in Data and that is not where Walmart is going. I do believe Pre-Paid plans will grow and eventually you will be able to purchase your own phone and choose the carrier of choice. What people don't realize is that these niche players have limited coverage, which will not suffice for most of us, however if you are on a budget, why not. There unlimited plans only work where they have coverage. At least Boost Mobile has nationwide coverage and Push to Talk, which is not available on most of these plans.

  On the Post Paid side the carriers that will get hurt the most are the ones that are gouging the consumer the most, ATT and Verizon. When compared to Sprint they are charging double Sprint's monthly contracted service for relatively the same service. That means a gouging premium of $80/month, which over two years amounts to $1,920. Now I ask you is an iPhone worth an extra $1,920? It might have been even a year ago, but with the current selection of phones from HTC's Hero, Samsung's Moment and the new iteration of Palms, Pre and Pixi, the answer is absolutely not.

  As the consumer becomes privy to these differences and a better selection of phones become available both ATT and Verizon will be compelled to lower their prices. Sprint has less room to lower prices only because they have already done so.

• Report this Comment On October 28, 2009, at 4:34 AM, HarvyWall wrote:

  You are quite wrong Aryabod, Straight Talk runs on Verizon's network nationwide and the the coverage is not limited, in fact Verizon has better coverage than Boost (Sprint) which is a well known fact and Straight Talk's unlimited is cheaper than Boost's. I bought the unlimited Straight Talk package and the data is also unlimited so I think you really don't know what you are talking about. I am very happy with my new Straight Talk phone, it does everything I need it to do.

• Report this Comment On October 31, 2009, at 1:51 PM, CheapChica wrote:

  The growth of prepaid is a function of two things: the economy, naturally, and the growing unhappiness of the shenanigans of the postpaid providers.

  To many of us, the best thing about Straight Talk is its simplicity. I am so tired of wading through funky phone bills with mysterious charges and fees.

  I really appreciate the savings, of course, but not having those awful and undecipherable bills has been a great stress-reducer.

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