In 2,000+ stores and online, Straight Talk and Walmart are offering the iPhone 5 for $649 plus a $45 a month no-contract plan. That plan includes unlimited talk, text and data.

“We believe customers shouldn’t have to choose between saving money and having the latest technology,” said Seong Ohm, senior vice president of Entertainment for Walmart U.S. “Now customers can have the coveted iPhone with unlimited talk, text and data without a contract for $70 a month thanks to our exclusive Straight Talk plan and industry first financing offer.”

Here’s how it works:

Customers can purchase one of two plans – a $45 a month plan that includes unlimited calling, text, and data and a $60 a month plan that includes unlimited talk, text, and data plus unlimited international calling. Of course, both of these plans are part of Straight Talk’s no-contract service.

Of course, customers will have to buy the phones outright – no contract deal. Walmart is offering the iPhone 5 (16GB) for $649 or the iPhone 4 (8GB) for $449.

Walmrt is also offering an interest-free fixed monthly payment plan of $25 a month with a Walmart credit card.

“We are thrilled to be bringing the remarkable iPhone 5 to customers looking for one of the most advanced smartphones with one of the most affordable No Contract plans ever,” said F.J. Pollak, CEO and President, TracFone Wireless. “The advanced iPhone 5 with our unlimited $45 monthly plan and Walmart’s $25 special financing offer is a marriage made in heaven – making it the most affordable premium smartphone offer in America. With this exclusive offer the last reason for not purchasing the No Contract Straight Talk plan is gone.”

The report cites “people familiar with the discussions,” with one of them admitting that the talks are not advanced, and that they “could amount to nothing”. The people also reportedly said that Google is only one of several companies Dish has been talking to about such an endeavor. The WSJ reports:

In an interview Thursday, Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen declined to comment on Google specifically, but said some of the potential partners he has considered include companies “who would like to be in the industry” and currently don’t have a wireless business.

Google and Dish have partnered in the past. Dish was an initial partner of Google TV when it was first unveiled. Google is actually competing with Dish these days, with Google Fiber, even though so far, it’s only available in Kansas City.

In addition to Google Fiber, Google has the operating system in Android, and the hardware in Motorola Mobility. Wireless seems like the next logical territory for the company to extend into.

Facebook’s already becoming a pain in the backside for mobile carriers as more people are using the site, presumably both on the web and mobile, to send messages instead of straight-out texting. Add to that the strain that your typical Facebook activity, like uploading photos and videos, is putting on mobile networks and it starts to sound like Facebook is taking their share as well as the carriers’ share.

That’s only the current problem wireless carriers are having with Facebook. Who knows what innovations Facebook might come up with in the future that could increase the tax that it takes on mobile providers. A telecom analyst told the New York Times today about some potentially terrifying possibilities – terrifying if you’re AT&T or Verizon, at least – of how Facebook could seriously bite into mobile industry, such as with the creation of a built-in voice messaging feature.

As more people bypass their mobile carriers’s paid services and use free alternatives to texting and, possibly, actually calling people (if people even still continue to want to do that in the future), expect that the carriers will find ways to recoup that loss of revenue, perhaps most likely by hiking up the price of data plans or even capping data usage.

Then again, there’s no real reason why Facebook and the dons of the wireless industry can’t find an accord. Facebook’s new App Center presents one opportunity the two parties might be able to play nicely together, not to mention the fact that most people probably consider things like their mobile Facebook experience whenever they’re considering a smartphone purchase from a carrier.

Or, if people are speculating that Apple could possibly become a wireless service provider, who’s to say that Facebook couldn’t do the same thing if it was to be so bold?

Google devised the study to fit the itinerary of McKinsey’s Consumer Decision Journey. When it comes to triggers that are most likely to cause a person to go shopping for a new phone, nearly half (48%) said it was because they were eligible for an upgrade. Given that most people have to wait through a two-year contract before they are eligible for an upgrade, I imagine their very lived-in phones feel embarrassingly antiquated by the time that eligibility light starts flashing for them. Still, many people aren’t all that patient as 31% purchase new phones because they can’t sleep at night if they don’t have the latest, bestest device to plop off the conveyor belt.

While new, shiny objects generally prompt people to start phone shopping, consumers said that when planning for a new phone, they actually care the most about network reliability, usage cost, and data plan structure.

Although consumers have bad case of phone-envy, they do at least extensively research products before opening up their pocketbooks. 72% of shoppers weighed two or more cell phone models when contemplating a purchase and 57% considered five or more different brand sites.

Over two-thirds of cell phone purchases happened in-store in 2011, meaning most people want to get that little device in their eager paws before they commit to a purchase (good on you, too!). Apparently video promotions are effective because 69% of smartphone buyers who watched a video trekked to a store that sells smartphones. More, 72% of people who conducted a little bit of mobile research purchased a phone in-store.

In general, digital research was absolutely vital to the purchase process. People could probably not research their way out of a paper bag without some sort of digital access (that’s actually the clinical nomenclature, too).

Opposition over the deal, however, appears to be growing. Public Knowledge and a number of other public interest groups as well as wireless carriers including Sprint and T-Mobile, have been very vocal in their concerns over the agreement. In February, they even filed a petition to deny the transfer and its additional agreements.

In the petition, the groups wrote:

“It does not take the celebratory plaudits of Wall Street analysts to recognize that these proposed transactions would fundamentally alter the nature of the telecommunications world in a manner utterly contrary to that intended by the 1996 Telecommunications Act. In the first place, Applicants have agreed to transfer more spectrum to the largest wireless operator, aggravating existing anticompetitive problems with spectrum aggregation. In addition, Applicants have agreed to three critical side agreements bearing on each other’s businesses that give rise to serious concern that not only will these providers decline to compete further with one another, they will actively collude with one another.”

These groups fear the deal would give Verizon too much power and thus harm competition and consumers. In a recent interview with Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge, he told us that, during the debate surrounding AT&T’s bid to buy T-Mobile, which, of course, didn’t happen, Verizon had said it didn’t need anymore spectrum for the foreseeable future. Now, the company’s view seems to have changed since it has argued that the deal should go through to avoid a “spectrum crunch.”

“What you have in this deal is some really prime spectrum going to the largest carrier, which already has more than anybody else,” said Brodsky.

Last week’s hearing from the antitrust subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee tried to determine if the consortium of cable companies had reached out to other carriers before Verizon. But, Brodsky told us that the topic was left unanswered.

“The bigger is getting bigger, and the smaller is fading away because they’re not able to have access to the raw material of wireless, which is spectrum,” he said.

In addition to the spectrum aspect, the deal would also include a joint-marketing agreement that, according to Brodsky would have “all sorts of implications for competition, none of which are good.” Specifically, this area would enable Verizon to sell cable’s high-speed Web product, while also allowing the cable companies to sell Verizon’s product.

At last week’s hearing, Senator Herb Kohl, who is the chair of the antitrust subcommittee, asked Verizon and the cable companies if they were calling a “truce” and standing down as rivals. He expressed concern that the deal would undo the progress that had been made in regards to competition over the past several years.

“There’s absolutely no incentive for Verizon, the cable company, to build out or improve its data product because its affiliate is gonna be selling Comcast or Bright House or Time Warner,” said Brodsky.

He went on to say that it would also decrease competition via FiOS. Also, since most places don’t have FiOS, he said that the majority of consumers would either have very slow copper-based DSL or cable options, since Verizon doesn’t plan on further build-out of the platform.

Another point of contention with the deal is the “Joint Operating Agreement,” which has been nicknamed “JOE.” According to Verizon and the cable companies, the agreement is a research project. Those in opposition, however, believe that it could lead to anti-competitive measures.

As Brodsky explained, JOE would allow the companies to create new technology and thus control this new innovation. He, and others, believes that JOE could also give Verizon and the cable companies the power to determine whether or not other players could integrate or adopt them.

“They could keep it to themselves, they could license it at exorbitant fees, [and] they could act in all sorts of anti-competitive ways,” he said.

Since the deal has received a large outcry of opposition, the FCC and the Department of Justice are still investigating the agreements. Brodsky told us that, while he is hopeful that it won’t be approved, he is pessimistic about it given antitrust cases of late.

Incidentally, Rick Rule, who was the lead attorney for Microsoft in the DOJ’s antitrust case against it, testified at last week’s hearing and predicted that it would be approved.

“A transaction that takes assets that are producing zero and is going to put the assets in hands of a company that is going to generate some output from those assets is by definition not a violation of the antitrust laws,” he said.

Do you think the deal will be approved? Could you see it impacting consumers positively or negatively? Let us know.

But there are plenty of catches. Customers will be required to purchase a $50 antenna or a $100 mobile hotspot to plug into their laptop. The free accounts are limited to 200 MB per month, not much in this day and age. It’s fine if you only plan to read e-mails and surf the web, just don’t plan on watching too many videos. And the service only lasts a year.

When the monthly data allotment or the one year time limit is exhausted, customers have the option of continuing for a modest price hike of $9.95… Now it’s starting to make sense.

NetZero is planning to use the free service to draw people into their paid program, and the kicker is once you opt into the paid version there is no going back.

The $9.95 plan gives you 300 more megabytes, or you can go for broke with the $50 plan, giving you 4 gigabytes. Similar programs are offer by Verizon and AT&T. Verizon charges about $50 for 1 gigabyte.

Though there is a catch with this as well. United Online doesn’t have its own wireless broadband service. They have to piggyback on Clearwire Corp.’s network. You may know them as the providers of “Sprint 4G” service.

And there’s more. Clearwire’s broadband technology has been bypassed by the industry at large, making device compatibility an issue. The reason is that the frequency it uses has difficulty traveling through buildings. Sprint bypasses this by using a fallback option when signal strength is low. NetZero doesn’t have that option. What’s more, Clearwire is no longer expanding this service, choosing to invest its money in 4G LTE.

So if you don’t mind using an already outdated service, never using your computer inside, purchasing $50 worth of equipment for a “free” service, and only having enough data to read e-mails, this service is for you. I will be paying a little extra for full service.

Complaints from T-Mobile USA, Sprint Nextel, Public Knowledge, and the National Consumer Law Center have been filed with the FCC, trying to get Verizon’s efforts blocked.

WebProNews interviewed Public Knowledge staff attorney Jodie Griffin about the situation. She says it could be “to the detriment of smaller wireless carriers and to the detriment of consumers”.

Watch the interview above for more on the Public Knowledge side of the story. Griffin also addresses the spectrum auctions that are part of the payroll tax cut bill.

For more on the auctions, check out our exclusive interview with Bruce Mehlman, the former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Tech Policy and the Co-Chair of the Internet Innovation Alliance.

Verizon’s deal is under review from both the FCC and the DoJ.

Now, some bad news about T-Mobile on the subscriber front.

Deutsche Telekom announced that T-Mobile USA lost 802,000 contract customers in Q4. They seem to blame it on the lack of the iPhone:

For T-Mobile USA, the past year was characterized by significant challenges, particularly in the fourth quarter, following the market launch of the new Apple iPhone model by the three major national competitors in October.

Although the rumors were everywhere preceding the release of the iPhone 4S that it would be coming to T-Mobile, they all proved to be incorrect. Sprint ended up getting the iPhone, making T-Mobile the only major carrier in the U.S. to not offer the popular Apple device. Recently, there has been new talk of T-Mobile getting the iPhone – whenever the iPhone 5 finally drops. T-Mobile’s CTO told the CES conference in January that that the new iPhone would include a chipset that could make bringing the device to T-Mobile a possibility. Of course, it all really depends on whether or not they can reach a deal.

It appears that the lack of the iPhone really hurt T-Mobile in this most recent quarter. Revenue sank 3.3% to $20.6 billion.

It wasn’t all bad news from Deutsche Telekom. They also said that T-Mobile will debut an LTE service next year. They would most likely be the last ones on that ship as well.

It began with providing landline telephones but then added cell phones in more recent years. The funding for it comes from a “tax” that’s included in everyone’s monthly phone bill.

Through the program’s rapid growth over the years, an overhaul was greatly needed, as Larry Downes, a Senior Adjunct Fellow at TechFreedom tells us.

“There’s general consensus among everyone, including all the commissioners at the FCC, that the Lifeline program has gotten very much out of control and very much sort of veered away from its intended goal,” he said.

He explained to us that the problems started because there was no cap included. As a result, everyone that was eligible applied, which meant that funds quickly ran out. To fix this, the FCC would simply raise the “tax” on ordinary users.

“The more people who apply, the more money that everyone else winds up paying on their phone bill every month to subsidize the plan,” said Downes.

An even greater problem, however, is the fact that the FCC didn’t have any checks and balances in place to monitor fraud or abuse. What this means is many people were getting multiple lifeline subsidies for both landline phones and wireless devices.

Downes explains that an entire industry was essentially built inside the program, in which groups of people would have the single job of signing up users. Since they didn’t have any equipment and had roaming arrangements with carriers, they were able to make a small profit.

“Some of the unscrupulous providers of the service were just signing up people multiple times or they were signing them up in multiple different programs and clearly violating the rules and, indeed, violating the law,” he said.

Downes believes that the FCC is rightly to blame for a lot of this fraud and abuse.

“It has never been particularly professional in the way it goes about its administration of this and other funds, including… [the] Internet fund for libraries called E-Rate fund as well as other universal service programs,” he points out.

In fact, an ongoing Department of Justice investigation into the E-Rate program recently sentenced 2 people to prison. Up to this point, the investigation has led to 7 companies and 24 people either pleading guilty, being convicted, or entering into civil settlements.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski released this statement on the news:

“The E-Rate program brings enormous benefits to students everywhere. I applaud today’s action by DOJ. This successful prosecution reflects the collaborative efforts of the DOJ and FCC to protect E-rate from waste, fraud, and abuse, and to deter future misconduct.”

“It’s pretty much, I think, inexcusable that the FCC just failed completely to introduce the kind of basic oversights – the kind of basic management techniques – to make sure that this kind of waste and fraud wasn’t escalating as it clearly was,” said Downes.

With the reform, the FCC now says it is putting in controls and expects to save an estimated $3 billion. With this money, it plans to begin a pilot program that would also grant high-speed Internet access to eligible participants.

Downes has a problem with this because he doesn’t think the Commission has the legal authority to implement such a program without Congressional consent. According to him, the FCC repeatedly uses Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to expand its authority even when it isn’t relevant.

While this is definitely a concern, he thinks an even greater issue is the fact that the agency is starting the broadband program now before it has had a chance to implement its checks and balances.

“If it turns out that they don’t actually save $3 billion over the next two years, they’re gonna have spent some of that money anyway on this pilot program,” said Downes.

He went on to say that a better plan would be to implement the audits and check them in six months. If they were working, then they would know the broadband plan was executable.

The FCC released its order late last week, which means that groups are likely reviewing it to see if they need to take legal action to get it reversed.

Do you think the FCC’s Lifeline program overhaul will solve the issues of fraud? Let us know in the comments.

The CTIA found that the number of wireless subscriber connections has surpassed the number of people in the U.S. and its territories. It also found a 111 percent increase in wireless data traffic.

While the situation is by all means challenging, the massive eruption of content that sparked it is both encouraging and exciting.

“We’re in this exciting arms race where the creation of content is happening so fast it’s exceeding even these amazing improvements in computing power, these amazing improvements in storage capacity, and particularly, these amazing improvements in connectivity,” said Bruce Mehlman, the former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Tech Policy and the Co-Chair of the Internet Innovation Alliance.

To help solve this problem of congestion, Congress is currently examining legislation that would free up more spectrum from broadcast radio and television companies. While everyone agrees that more spectrum is needed, the dispute is over how it would be distributed and, specifically, the FCC’s role in this process.

In the past, the FCC has had a very active position in managing the auctions. In other words, it has had the power to place restrictions on auctions or conditions on spectrum based on the bidders’ market dominance and spectrum holdings.

However, the bill that’s currently in the House would remove this power from the FCC, which is a move that is sparking a lot of debate. Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt recently called the proposed bill “the single worst telecom bill” he’d ever seen.

The House argues that previous government allocations are the reason that the current “spectrum crunch” is happening. It also believes that limitations in auctions would result in less revenue to help reduce the federal deficit.

As Mehlman explained to us, Congress is remembering what happened in the controversial 2008 spectrum auctions as well as the recent failed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile. He sides with policymakers on this issue because he believes the previous restrictions are to blame for the current problems.

In a post on the Internet Innovation Alliance, Mehlman wrote:

Many in Congress fear FCC micromanagement and seek open auction rules free from FCC interference. The FCC, of course, objects to Congressional micromanagement of their micromanagement, seeking maximum flexibility to set auction rules.

The irony here is that these auctions are needed because the last time this spectrum was assigned, policy makers limited its potential use and transfer. Thus much of the spectrum is under-utilized and our economy suffers for it.

In our recent interview, he expressed concern that the same issues would continue if the FCC were permitted to keep its authority.

“The biggest challenge is if the FCC gets its way and follows through with what many in the House fear they might do, which is limit who’s allowed to compete, I think the very spectrum crunch these very auctions are expected to alleviate doesn’t get alleviated… then problems continue,” pointed out Mehlman.

“I think most people would concede the reason there’s inefficient use of spectrum is because of old government decisions on who could and could not use spectrum,” he continued. “Logically, you want less government constraints in the future.”

Some mobile companies are perfectly happy with the FCC’s authority over the auctions as a group of them led by Sprint and T-Mobile sent a letter to lawmakers asking that the Commission’s position remain the same. AT&T and Verizon are not part of this support since they believe the FCC would favor the smaller carriers.

Incidentally, not everyone agrees that auctions would solve the issue. Rick Whitt, Google’s Washington Managing Counsel, recently indicated that auctions would not completely eliminate the spectrum crunch saying, “Auctions will fall short of meeting that gap.”

Mehlman told us that he agrees with Whitt in that content will likely be created faster than bandwidth can be apportioned. But, he believes that this provides an even greater urgency to get policy in place that would encourage an open marketplace.

“Having everybody eligible to acquire the spectrum and to subsequently sell the spectrum to a higher and better user is letting the market allocate the spectrum,” he said. “If we had done that the first time, we would have less congestion, we’d have more high speed wireless, and, I think, we’d have the same amount of competition.”

“We don’t have a problem with lack of competition, we have a problem with a lack of investment, [and] we have a problem with a lack of spectrum aggregation to meet the marketplace needs,” he added.

Even though Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO David Smith said it was doubtful that Republicans and Democrats would be able to agree on legislation for a broadcast television auction this year, Mehlman thinks it is a possibility. As he explained, this legislation is part of larger jobs bill that both sides want to see pass.

Should auctions be open, or should the FCC have a say? What do you think? We’d love to hear your thoughts.