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Oct. 16, 2009

In other news that might surprise more than one industry observer, Walmart announced late yesterday that it will exclusively offer the TracFone Straight Talk wireless service in more than 3,200 of its stores in the U.S. beginning Oct. 18.

Wal-Mart's new no-contract mobile service will be offered with two prepaid plans at $30 and $45 a month.

As part of the exclusivity agreement, Straight Talk will only be available in Walmart stores and online at walmart.com or directly from straighttalk.com.

This new rollout follows a pilot testing project in 234 selected Wal-Mart stores between June 1st and August 15, 2009.

Wal-Mart added that the average adult in the U.S. spends about $77.80 on his or her cell phone bill to benefit 1,000 minutes a month (or slighlty more).

With a $30 Straight Talk plan, a typical wireless user could save more than $500 a year, and that's exactly what Wal-Mart is going after.

In March, Verizon Wireless started what was then labeled an experiment of sorts with Straight Talk in some of its wireless stores.

Staight Talk's website claims that it uses "one of America's best networks," without providing any additional details.

Wal-Mart already has all the infrastructure and more than 3000 stores in the U.S. alone, so of course using its facilities to get into the wireless segment makes a lot of corporate and business sense for the company.

And the fact that it successfully negotiated an exclusivity agreement with Straight Talk speaks volumes in the way it has always made deals in the past and how it continues to do so, making Wal-Mart the biggest player in retail.

So the next question is, will Target or other so-called discount stores follow in Wal-Mart's footsteps?

Stay tuned and we will soon find out...

We will keep you posted!

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    This article was featured on Business 5.0 and on Tech Blog.

Source: Wal-Mart.