FreedomPop Starts Selling Phones, Mobile VoIP

does this 'freemium' just shut off or do they charge you

if you go over?

nevermind. too much into needed just to see if service is avail.
thanks sprint but i get enough junk as it is. you AREN'T getting my street address!!1
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Despises any post with strings.

Interesting

I already use VoIP for most of my phone calls via T-Mobile HSPA. When it works, it works well, but when data coverage sucks, so does the quality of calls.

I wonder how bad it will suck via WiMax.

How often do you experience poor call (due to poor data) quality when using VoIP via T-Mobile?

Re: does this 'freemium' just shut off or do they charge you

"No overage penalties. Additional data can be purchased on a Pay-as-you-go basis for an additional 2 1/2 cents per MB of data."

could be a hit

this could be a huge hit if freedompop does 2 things:

1. offer this in stores like magicjacks are sold. people can be weary to signup online and give credit card info for a 'free' service, especially from a company with a social marketing type focus.

2. allow people to add airtime with scratch-off refill cards and not have credit card info kept on file to pay overages.

i believe freedompop could still make money even without the assurance of an ongoing billing relationship, lots of people would try this out and than find they need quite a bit more than 200 minutes and 500 MB of data. as long as its reasonable priced they would grab scratch cards and refill the minutes/data. but the people most attracted to a free/cheap service like this do not buy online and do not use credit cards.

It has promise, but...

...my first issue is with using WIMAX. That's a technological dead end, even if you can get it. Better to wait for LTE.

Second, I've read enough bad reviews of this company's practices to not want to get anywhere near them.

does voice and sms count against data?

i am wondering what happen on the $11 plan after the data is used up. can users still call and SMS without buying more data? if not i am sure some customer's will the confused with the marketing language.

Re: Interesting

There are certain places in my area where I'm certain to get poor data coverage, not necessarily due to reception but local tower congestion. It happens from time to time.

It's much more improved ever since switching to GSM codec for all calls though.

Re: It has promise, but...

My guess is that FreedomPop has been working on delivering decent WiMAX voice quality for awhile now, and they can get the Evo Design phones on the cheap. So that's why they're using them right now.

Give it two or three months and I'm guessing an LTE phone will turn up.

Start selling but ship when?

Start selling but ship when? For example, I don't think they are shipping the Freedom Spot MiFi 5580 yet. I ordered on the morning of the first day they had it on their web site (Aug 6, almost 2 months ago) and they have not shipped it yet. But they charged my credit card the day I ordered it!

Things like this are why I won't deal with this company. Charging someone before the product ships is shady, plain and simple.

Everythime I contact them about when it will be shipped, they say "Soon", 5 to 7 business days, a month later they said 2 to 5 business days. THey even said before Labor Day which has come and gone.

Unless you really, really want it, it might be time to cancel and ask for a refund, which will likely end up requiring a call to your credit card company to dispute the charge.

read the fine print but a good technical direction

I have used FreedomPop (modem/wifi) service and technically it was pretty darn good. But their "free" service had all these monthly fees adding up to $6.95 p.m. (guarantee speed /service fees etc). And it was an extremely difficult a road to go down and cancel because they had almost zero customer service.

Hopefully they are being fully upfront about the total cost of this new service and have some upgraded customer service for the newer offerings. But please read all the small print! Note a user would be paying a fraction of what Verizon and others charge which has to be nice

Technically and directionally I believe that Freedompop are treading the future pathway of mobile telecommunications and I wish them success. Sprint service is pretty good (I use them on a direct basis) but do check out that they have coverage in the areas you will mostly use the phone. A potential customer should also consider Republic Wireless.

Re: Start selling but ship when?

Thanks. I did call my credit card company. I explained what was going on. They said for this case, they will extend the time I have to dispute the charge. I think I will wait until that time is near before I cancel the order.

In the mean time, I will research what else is available by other companies. I mostly use home and public WiFi so I will be a low user. My wife uses a wymax mifi from them which I sometime use on weekends when no public WiFi is available. We have never gone over Freedompop data limits.

Suggestions are welcome for other companies which have low usage planes. The only time I think I may go over is when I'm on vacation.

Re: read the fine print but a good technical direction

Republic Wireless is just another company with zero customer service.

Start selling but ship when?

Start selling but ship when? For example, I don't think they are shipping the Freedom Spot MiFi 5580 yet. I ordered on the morning of the first day they had it on their web site (Aug 6, almost 2 months ago) and they have not shipped it yet. But they charged my credit card the day I ordered it!

Re: read the fine print but a good technical direction

If you paid close attention to what you were clicking on, FreedomPop does have a completely free option. You, like many, fell for the "fine print" and ok'd their lame "value add" services. Me, I only pay $0.99/month if I don't use it -- which is what clear is charging them for inactive accounts, and they've said they were going to stop that. In the months that I actually use it, I. Pay. Nothing. At. All.

(But, yes, getting those things turned off once activated is a pain.)

good idea needs better marketing

this is a good way to go need batter marketing and some way to use old sprint phones with out cloning the esn, in general it will make ppl adopt new tech and willing to pay for it like I will get this for a child because its for emergency where ever they go there wifi and google voice and 500mb it more than adequate for that texting and calling so the rest of the usage is irrelevant .

Re: Start selling but ship when?

Wow really? I've been really looking at FreedomPop just for grins, and was saving up for that LTE-capable Mifi. Looks like I'll be holding off a while longer yet.

Re: good idea needs better marketing

Agreed. They've got a fairly aggressive Twitter PR guy (just mention FP on Twitter and you'll get a reply directly from them) but they really really really need more marketing if they want to stand a chance. If I casually bring it up with my friends, not a single one of them has ever heard of it before.

Starting to think freedompop is a sham

Still waiting on my LTE device i ordered close to a month ago.

Charge for non-usage?

What's the monthly charge if you do not use the device?

I know from firsthand experience they have been charging people fees if they do not use their previous product...sketchy so I cancelled. Maybe it was buried in the TOS, but it should have been obvious.

Voice over 3G

Looks similar to the Textnow phone offering except for the price (and phones offered). I tried Texnow, and even with the compressed codec, voice was frequently just awful (high latency and packet loss) over 3G.

Re: Interesting

It depends. Speex and GSM work mostly fine on a well tuned EDGE connection on T-Mobile. The wider band PCMU seems to even work at 3G or better. But be prepared to tweak a bit.