U.S. Cellular and Alltel Wireless Join Together to Offer Prepaid Wireless Service in Nearly 500 Walmart Stores Next Month

U.S. Cellular

and Alltel Wireless have joined together to begin offering U Prepaid, a no contract wireless service, in select Walmart Stores, Inc.

in local communities across 18 states beginning in May. The alliance, the first of its kind in the industry, offers customers flexible payment options without signing a contract. "Teaming with Alltel to gain distribution in Walmart gives us another opportunity to be where our customers want to shop and to offer more customers a prepaid service that helps them control their monthly budgets," said Carter S. Elenz, executive vice president of sales and customer service for U.S. Cellular. "U Prepaid customers with U.S. Cellular will be backed by our high-speed network, which has the highest call quality and network satisfaction of any national carrier." The new alliance provides Walmart customers simplified, easy-to-understand service plan choices. Depending on where customers live, the U Prepaid service will run on either U.S. Cellular's high-speed national network or Alltel's advanced coast-to-coast network.