日前，世界上最大的零售商沃尔玛也宣布加入电讯军备赛，推出了沃尔玛“家庭移动计划”（Family Mobile plan），该项目性质为选择性合约服务，由T-Mobile美国互联网公司负责运营。

Walmart changes the cell phone game

值得玩味的是，沃尔玛这一项目的服务收费远低于T-Mobile自身的资费标准，用户每月支付45美元即可享受不限时通话和无限量短信服务，如果多付25美元还可以额外开通一个分机帐户。T-Mobile举双手赞成沃尔玛这一颇具竞争力的价格，T-Mobile的CEO吉姆•奥林甚至称这一计划为“伟大的创举”。虽然如此，T-Mobile的用户究竟可以从中享受到多少优惠仍然有待观望。

这并非沃尔玛与电信运营商的首次合作，该公司还曾分别与威瑞森（Verizon）和斯普林特（Sprint）联手推出无线通讯服务，所不同的是，这些项目都属于用户预付款的服务类型，而“家庭移动计划”则恰恰相反，用户可以先体验后付费，即每月底按帐单结算付费。

另外，这项新服务还省略了一些繁杂而多余的手机合约条款，用户无需支付合约中止费、合约保证金等，当然，这些免合约的手机价格也相对昂贵。

据悉，沃尔玛本次推出这项服务的另一层用意是，摆脱原先的预付款服务给人们带来的消极印象，据该公司销售副总裁格雷•霍（Greg Hall）所称，用户经常不满自己预付款后，得到的却是劣质的手机和滞后的网络服务。

结合了预付款和体验后付费这两种服务优势，又得到强悍的网络运营商T-Mobile的倾力加盟，再加上庞大的消费军团，沃尔玛重塑手机市场格局这一计划的实现必将指日可待。对我们这些长期为手机合约纠结不已的用户来说，这项服务倒也是个不赖的选择。

Walmart Changes the Cell Phone Game

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is joining the telecom game. Starting today, the Walmart Family Mobile plan launches as a contract-optional service, carried on T-Mobile’s USA network.

Interestingly, Walmart’s plan costs less than T-Mobile’s–$45 per month for unlimited calling and texting, and $25 for each additional line. Yet T-Mobile has encouraged the partnership. T-Mobile CEO Jim Alling called Walmart’s branding a “tremendous endorsement.” How regular T-Mobile customers will feel about being undercut like this remains to be seen.

This isn’t the first time Walmart has teamed with mobile carriers. The company runs a wireless service with Verizon and is developing another with Sprint. Those plans are prepaid, however. The Family Mobile plans are postpaid, meaning the bill is received at the end of the month rather than at the beginning.

What’s more, Walmart’s new service avoids a lot of the nonsense we’ve come to associate with cell phone contracts. Theirs does not require termination fees, require contacts or even credit checks.(Their cell phones are significantly more expensive without a contract, however.)

This T-Mobile partnership is part of Walmart’s goal to shed the stigma of prepaid plans. According to Greg Hall, the company’s VP of merchandising, consumers often equate prepaid services with cheap cell phones and poor network quality.

By combining the benefits of both prepaid and postpaid plans, and partnering with a strong network carrier, Walmart hopes to reinvent the mobile market. Given their hundreds of millions of customers, they may well succeed. And for those of us struggling with our cell phone contracts, that may be no bad thing.（source：fastcompany）

声明：本文中文为游戏邦翻译，英文原文采用fastcompany，转载请保留版权信息，谢谢！