Verizon Wireless Offers Pay-As-You-Go Service At Wal-Mart

Verizon Wireless on Thursday said it's now selling its pay-as-you-go mobile phone service at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s 2,300 locations nationwide.

The prepaid INpulse service costs $1 dollar a day, plus an additional 10 cents a minute for daytime calling to people who are not Verizon customers. There's no additional charge for night calling.

Prepaid services are useful primarily to people who don't use a mobile phone much, but would like to have one for emergencies, Consumer Reports said in a study released in January. Companies such as Cingular, T-Mobile, TracFone and Virgin sell the service for as little as $35, including the phone and a token number of minutes.

Airtime after that ranges from 10 cents to 50 cents a minute, the consumer magazine says.

Verizon Wireless, however, charges $1 a day whether the phone is used or not. In addition, there's an added 29 cents a minute for calls to Canada, Mexico or Guam; and $1.49 a minute to other international locations. Roaming charges are 69 cents a minute.

Verizon Wireless, based in Bedminster, N.J., is a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone.