If you haven’t heard of FreedomPop yet, here’s the basic rundown: It’s a service that initially only offered free mobile data but later introduced voice communication as well. The company continued its expansion recently by graduating to a full-fledged mobile operator, selling its first smartphone, the HTC (News - Alert) Evo Design, alongside its usual service model.
If this all sounds a little too good to be true, there are restrictions. Users have traditionally been restricted to 500MB of data each month, along with a maximum of 200 minutes. This continues to be the case now that FreedomPop has become a proper mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), but customers also get 500 texts per month. Going beyond any of these limits will result in a charge.
The way the company is able to provide its unique plan is by approaching the MVNO model in a unique way. Rather than simply reselling another network’s voice, data and messaging, FreedomPop buys 3G and 4G data in bulk from Sprint (News - Alert) and provides texting and calling through over-the-top data-based services. In other words, FreedomPop is one of a few all-IP network providers in the U.S. In fact, it is just the second such carrier to do so, following the launch of TextNow’s IP-only mobile service by a couple of months.
The major issues with FreedomPop people are likely to have is smartphone choice — users are limited to only the $99 Evo Design for now, but more Android smartphones are said to be on the way — and the fact that it relies mainly on Sprint’s WiMAX (News - Alert) network. To be fair, FreedomPop does also use the Sprint LTE network, but WiMAX is much more widespread, so most customers should expect to be using the latter much of the time.
As for its plans, FreedomPop does allow for deviation beyond the 200 minutes/500 texts baseline. In fact, customers can simply pay for extra texts and minutes each month or sign up for the $11 per month, unlimited talk and text plan. As for data, it seems that your choices are to stay under 500MB each month, or pay for a bit more.
Edited by Blaise McNamee