FreedomPop’s aim is to disrupt the mobile market by offering free mobile service (including data) for smartphones, and the company has now expanded by giving users free data on 4G LTE tablets--even better, they’ve added the ability for users to actually call and text from the devices.
FreedomPop gives you your own unique phone number for the tasks and uses its own over-the-top FreedomPop Free Voice and Text application to enable the telephony features, operating as a Sprint MVNO.
The company offers a reasonably strong spate of tablets at a discount; there are iPad minis in black and white for $319.99 (instead of $399.99) and black and white Galaxy Tab 3s, as well (for $199 instead of $279.99). The Galaxy Tab 3 deals may expire, though--FreedomPop is running a 25% launch special discount on the devices. You can also bring your own 4G LTE-capable tablet, including iPads and other Galaxy Tabs, to the service if you like.
The Basic deal is totally free and offers 500MB of data, 200 calling minutes, and 500 text messages each month. If you want a bit more, there’s a $19.99 per month plan that offers 2GB of data, and a 4GB data plan will run you $34.99 per month.
The tablet deal joins FreedomPop’s free smartphone and WiFi hotspot offerings to make for a nicely well-rounded portfolio that will surely only continue to grow. FreedomPop’s service is not available in all areas--there are some notable gaps around various parts of the country--which limits its impact, but this is an intriguing company to keep an eye on.
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