Having a functional cellphone is one of the critical tools single parents need today in order to stay in contact with their children. Unfortunately all that texting, calling and Internet comes with nosebleed price tags. And if you have been looking for a way to cut down your cellphone bill, Walmart’s new StraightTalk service may be just what you have been waiting for.

Let me just mention that I do not endorse Walmart’s new service and I have no idea how well the service actually works. But the retailer’s price of $45 per month for an all-you-can eat package sounds enticing, especially if you are currently shelling out $150 per month for AT&T’s unlimited calling/texting service. Here is what you need to know before you consider switching to Walmart.

Let’s talk first about the upside (yes, there is a downside as well) first. For $30 per month you get 1000 minutes, 1000 texts and 30 MB of data service (which should be good for checking all your email as long as you do not download movies or huge images every day.) $45 provide unlimited calling and texting and 30 MB of data. This compares to about $90 for T-Mobile’s all you can eat plan (includes unlimited Internet usage), which is offering that price to existing customers as part of a “loyalty” program. Typically, you may spend about $100 per month just on unlimited calling with the three big providers AT&T, Sprint Nextel and Verizon.

So Walmart is definitely aggressive here.

Here’s the downside. The StraightTalk service is not contract-based, which means that you are not locked into one of those nasty 2-year contracts, but you will have to renew your service every 30 days. StraightTalk is another brand of the prepaid service provided under the TracFone Umbrella, which also sells its service as Net10 and Safelink Wireless. While TracFone supports, technologically speaking, all types of phones you can buy in the U.S., your existing phone will not work on StraightTalk as the TracFone service is closely tied to TracFone devices. So you will have to buy a phone from Walmart: You can currently choose from three phones, ranging from $30 to $100 in price. There is no phone that offers a full Blackberry-type QWERTY keyboard and don’t even expect to find a touchscreen phone. If you choose Walmart cellphone service, you will have to compromise on the feature set of your next phone.

In the end, it is a barebones service for those who want to cut their cellphone bill. If you are among them, have a look, but also remember that dropping out of your current cellphone contract before the 2-year period is over will cost you – somewhere between $50 and $175. Market research indicates that 68% of cellphone users are currently locked into a cellphone contract.

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Tags: technology

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Practical Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.