Verizon Communications has enlisted Walmart to sell a pay-as-you-go home wireless internet service for $45 a month, marking the company's second big product for the prepaid market in as many months.
The service will be sold under the Straight Talk Home Internet brand exclusively at Walmart Inc. stores in coming weeks, according to a company announcement.
Connection speeds will be capped at 100 megabytes per second, and customers will need to purchase a $99 in-home router.
Verizon's prepaid service will rival T-Mobile U.S. Inc.'s $50-a-month Metro broadband offered in March. The new offer will give cord-cutters and so-called cord-nevers another way to access the internet at home without landlines.
For years, Verizon Communications Inc. largely ignored the prepaid market, but having fallen to the back of the three-carrier pack on traditional mobile-subscriber growth this year, the company has changed its approach.
Verizon is now targeting customers with little or no credit history, such as renters, students and people without bank accounts.
Verizon became the largest prepaid mobile phone provider last year in the United States when it bought TracFone Wireless for $6.6 billion. Last month, in its first big push since that deal, Verizon unveiled Total, a prepaid brand to compete with Metro from T-Mobile and Cricket by AT&T Inc.