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Walmart Adds Unlimited Data To Their Family Mobile Plan

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Today Walmart announced that the retailer’s Family Mobile plan will now include unlimited data instead of limiting web to a paltry 250MB per month. The pricing on the plan remains the same ($45/mo for 1 person, $35/mo for each extra phone).

This move is meant to encourage more of Walmart’s shoppers to consider a smartphone. According to the company’s data 44% first-time buyers cited data plan cost as a big hindrance to buying one. This is one of the reasons that pre-paid carriers are popular among lower income consumers. Many offer unlimited data along with everything else.

Walmart’s plan has the advantages of pre-paid carriers, including no contact, but is actually a post-paid plan on T-Mobile’s network. You get the advantages of a large, national carrier without the hassle of pre-paid and the bind of a two-year contract.

Walmart Family Mobile Plan now with Unlimited Web

There is a fly in the ointment. Because this is essentially T-Mobile, Walmart Family Mobile customers will get throttled just like everyone else. According to T-Mobile’s PR users will get 3G speeds on their data until they hit 5GB, then they’ll be slowed down to 2G until March 16th. After that users will get yanked back down to 2G after only 250MB of data.

This may not end up being a problem for customers who only use apps that sip data and stay away from streaming a lot of music and video. You can also save on data by connecting to Wi-Fi when you can. Still, it’s annoying to think you have unlimited data only to have that data crawl to your phone.

I’d be interested to see how well this does, especially if Walmart begins offering more low-cost smartphones in the near future. Though the service isn’t the fastest and the throttling is a pain, making smartphones more accessible to everyone is a good step forward in bridging the digital divide.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. ol1bit

    01/17/2012 at 6:03 pm

    250mb throttling for a smart phone?

    That’s crazy, I hit 1 gb easy and I’m not a big user of my phone!

  2. Hates This Service

    06/12/2012 at 4:22 pm

    THIS IS THE WORST SERVICE EVER , NEVER WORKED AND BEEN FIGHTING WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE FOR THE LAST 2 MONTHS TO GET MY CREDIT FOR THE MONTHS AND THEY SAID BECAUSE I ” USED IT ‘ THEY WONT REFUND ME , I USED IT, TO TRY TO GET THE SERVICE TO WORK , I THOUGHT IT WAS MY PHONE IF I WOULD KNEW IT WAS THE SERVICE I WOULD CANCLED LONG AGO……RIP OFF PLACE , AND I AM A WALMART ASSOCIATE , THEY EVEN OVERCHARGED ME LAST MONTH , ( WHICH I DID NOT GET MY EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT INCLUDED , THEY WONT EVEN REFUND ME THAT!!!!!!!!)

  3. james

    09/19/2012 at 6:17 am

    this company burned me after the phone I had bricked, not only can you not contact them personally, cause they will hang up on you if you call them, plus email responses are only generic crud, but the worst part was they will give you a bogus charge(s) for leaving them and the fact that monthly charges are never accurate. first couple of month I paid more than $45 than 30 or so now I “owe” them over $120 for having no way of contacting them. if you want good service as far as coverage and cheap and affordable, basically an all around good deal this is not it!

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