Back in February, we first caught wind of FreedomPop's "disruptive" mobile 4G broadband service for consumers. Hoping to shake things up in the $100 billion wireless data market, FreedomPop is providing a free social 4G wireless broadband service for all. First, the company came out with an iPhone 4G sleeve, allowing users to connect to the company's 4G network free of charge and free of contracts.
Now, the company is finally launching limited pre-sales for its highly anticipated iPod Touch sleeve. Snapping directly onto the back of any iPod touch, the FreedomPop iPod 4G Sleeve essentially turns the iPod into an iPhone with free high-speed 4G connections. In addition to all of the regular iPhone goodies such as streaming videos and making calls, the sleeve will also let you turn your iPod into a personal hotspot with up to 8 simultaneous connections.
In addition to announcing its latest product, FreedomPop also unveiled details on its social platform for free internet access. Using what the company calls the FreedomFriends Plan, FreedomPop users will have a guaranteed 500MB of free data each month with an additional 10 free megabytes for each friend they bring onboard, up to 1GB of free data. If 1GB of free data isn't enough, the FreedomFriends plan even takes the concept of shared data to the next level. According to the FreedomPop COO Steven Sesar, FreedomPop friends will have the ability to share and request data capacity from each other, making sure every MB of free data is used up efficiently every month.
Additional improvements to the social platform are also on the way, including functions such as friend locations, online presence and even free voice calls between friends. Heavier data users will be able to earn up to 5GB free by engaging in certain partner offers and promotions. For even more data, users will be able to purchase additional data for $10 per GB.
FreedomPop is also unveiling more details about its social platform for Internet access through its FreedomFriends Plan, which lets users earn an additional 10 free megabytes for each friend they bring onboard. What's more, FreedomPop takes the family plan concept recently announced by Verizon and AT&T a huge step further by letting all friends share capacity or request capacity from each other. Additional friend functionality such as location, online presence and even free voice calls will be added over time.
For more information on FreedomPop's disruptive free 4G service or to pre-order your own sleeve for only $99, head on over to the company's webpage at www.FreedomPop.com.
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chomlee Wait, let me get this straight. If I were to assume 1 mB is 1 minute of talk time (which is very conservative), it would cost me $10/month and I could have 1000 minutes of talk time and use a service such as google voice to get an actual phone number and replace my phone? Or do they give you a phone number as well?Reply
This could be a real game changer to the cell phone industry. -
math1337 Considering that I can barely use 1GB of data in a month, FREE sounds too good to be true.Reply -
eddieroolz Personally I think it might be better to buy a second hand iPhone if one desires voice/data on iPod touch so much.Reply -
chomlee Wow, just did some research. A typical clean voice bit rate is 12.65 kb/sec. This turns into 95 KB/min which means the 500 MB would give you plenty of talk time and enough to lightly browse the web (For FREE).Reply
Somebody let me know if this would work with google voice. I guess the next hurdle is what is the coverage area? -
stingstang Amazing. A smartphone data plan that's actually created for the USERS and not to pick clean a c note from the pockets of what seems to now be 90% of the grown population. Keep talking, and I might be persuaded to get myself an iPod touch/smartphone.Reply -
gilgamex chomleeWow, just did some research. A typical clean voice bit rate is 12.65 kb/sec. This turns into 95 KB/min which means the 500 MB would give you plenty of talk time and enough to lightly browse the web (For FREE).Somebody let me know if this would work with google voice. I guess the next hurdle is what is the coverage area?Reply
Ummmmmm how in the world did you come down to 95 kb/min?
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tanjo gilgamexUmmmmmm how in the world did you come down to 95 kb/min?12.65 kilobits/s * 60 = 759 kilobits/m or 94.875 kilobytes/mReply -
danwat1234 gilgamexUmmmmmm how in the world did you come down to 95 kb/min?Reply
12.65 Kilobits/sec * 60 = 759 Kilobits per minute. /8 = 94.875 Kilobytes per minute