Walmart And T-Mobile Team Up For No-Contract 4G Phone Plan

Chris Velazco

Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... → Learn More

Monday, October 3rd, 2011
tmart

If you’re the kind of person who would much rather text or email someone rather than actually talk to them, Walmart and T-Mobile would like to have a word with you. The two companies have announced Monday morning that T-Mobile will introduce a new no-contract 4G rate plan exclusively at Walmart.

Expected to go live on October 16, T-Mobile’s new Monthly4G plan only nets you 100 minutes, but customers will also have unlimited messaging and data at their disposal. Now of course, this is T-Mobile, so that unlimited data comes with a caveat: you’ll only be able to enjoy that 4G connection until you hit the 5GB cap, at which point you’ll be throttled down to EDGE speeds. All things considered, it’s still not too a shabby deal at $30 a month.

If anything, it’s Walmart’s phone selection that may leave you wanting more. At present, their prepaid T-Mobile lineup is almost entirely made up of feature phones, and one underwhelming Android device to round out the pack.

To help make their new plan more appealing though, T-Mobile has also said that Walmart will be getting their first prepaid 4G-capable phone shortly. And hey, if you’re truly bummed out about having to use a solid plan on a middling handset, you can always swap the SIM card into a nicer T-Mobile phone and reap the savings month after month. Ka-ching!