
How does FreedomPop make money? - mcone
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-freedompop-stokols-20170825-htmlstory.html
======
pbnjay
I tried FreedomPop a few months ago. The service was terribly unreliable and
call quality was poor. I cancelled after 2 weeks, and surprise the renewal
still charged me. Which I contested with my cancellation confirmation email.
Then a got a message from a collections agency about the still unpaid charge.
Still no closure, worst experience I've ever had with a phone company!

I used straight talk for years, and I'm now on project fi. Both are miles
above FreedomPop.

~~~
jgh
Project Fi seems cool and something I would happily subscribe to. Too bad it
only works with Google phones.

~~~
z2
I can't speak to any agreements or conditions of use, but technically you need
only a supported Google phone to activate the SIM card and tie it to a Google
account. Afterwards, the card works in any phone.

~~~
pasbesoin
My Nexus 5X (purchased through Fi, by the way, but recently using my Verizon
SIM because of certain network coverage, etc.) bootlooped. I'm waiting for the
Pixel 2, unless I decide on something else, and I picked up a Motorola G5+ to
tide me over until then or I "unbootloop" the 5X and decide I can trust it.

Anyway, comments on Amazon and/or Newegg about using the G5+ on Fi state that
it works but that calls can only be made on the T-Mobile network. IIRC -- this
wasn't a factor, for me, so I didn't make a mental note to self to
particularly remember that detail.

------
adventured
Pretty straight-forward submarine here.

The article is overloaded with gonna and might and could be and by end of x
date. And then of course the not subtle money revs. Whatever PR firm put
together this submarine, made them sound desperate:

"The Los Angeles company says its emergence over the last six years has led"
... "a near-acqusition for as much as $450 million"

"The company is reviewing a previously undisclosed acquisition offer, but
discussions are continuing about potentially going public next year."

"A near-bankrupt FreedomPop was hours away from selling to Sprint in 2015 when
a new $30-million investment came in from venture capitalists. Stokols isn’t
in a cash crunch this time around."

"Investors are equivocal about when to sell, saying that they’ll weigh any
offers, like the one on the table now, but that they generally want to see the
company remain independent for some time."

"If they hold out, investors could turn into potential acquirers." (har har,
nice fake spin by the PR firm on trying to project power)

So what you're really saying is: you want to sell (soon!), you're going to hit
a money crunch because the business has no margin and it's very expensive to
compete (but we could IPO any minute now, so you better buy us first), your
investors are worried (we like putting more money into a red ink machine that
nearly went under before), you're fake-touting strength when you're actually
not in that position at all (we might buy the entire telecom industry!), and
everything you might accomplish is forecast to x date into the future (when
you hope to have already sold, so the cash burning 'business' is a problem for
someone else).

Want to know what this really is? History rhymes. It's PeoplePC from the
dotcom bubble.

~~~
mason55
For those wondering what a submarine is:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

~~~
numbsafari
I, too, have seen the fnords.

------
rb808
I had a FreedomPop mifi box for 18 months which was great, cost me about $60
from memory for the hardware and a few dollars/mo in fees when I upgraded
something. It stopped when Sprint turned off Wimax.

I think there is a big market for people that want to pay $5-$15/mo for a
small data only plan for people that will use Wifi on their phone 90% of the
time but want to use mobile data just occasionally. Most of the major plans
start way over that.

I see they're selling data-only SIMs for phones. Is that new? I thought Apple
& Google insisted phones must have plan with a phone line. (If its good I
think I'll go back to data only (with Google Voice))

~~~
danellis
Google Voice just used to use data to set up a PSTN call. Has something
changed?

~~~
limeblack
I think you mean Google Hangouts if you are taking a about the app(which is
confusing and frankly my work on both on Android) and incoming calls only
works on Android.

~~~
danellis
> I think you mean Google Hangouts

No, Google Voice predates Google Hangouts.

~~~
limeblack
I misread the comment.

> Google Voice just used to use data to set up a PSTN call. Has something
> changed?

Google Voice did not originally support data only calling(VOIP) like I said
read the comment above me. He is supporting what I was saying.

> Yes. About 4 years ago they integrated full VoIP calling into something they
> call the Hangouts Dialer. Outbound works well, although I often have to
> initiate a call twice due to setup connectivity weirdness on LTE. Inbound
> basically never works, so I leave the PSTN forwarding on for that reason.

I have been on Google Voice for a fairly long time. Google Voice used to only
supports PSTN calling although it uses data to trigger the call.

------
tedmiston
> FreedomPop pays Sprint and AT&T based on customer usage. The two big
> carriers can see what websites FreedomPop users are checking out, but
> neither they nor FreedomPop can record or monitor calls as long as only
> FreedomPop users are participants.

I wonder if the major carriers track and log web browsing history of their own
customers as well? And if we can opt out...

~~~
samstave
Of course they can. Of course you cannot.

T-Mobile, for example even monitors and freaking blocks your usage to certain
sites when on airplane mode and on wifi - even when you have wifi assist
disabled.

Further, they even deduct from you data usage wifi use!

It's provable! I've proved it and T-Mobile Philippines call center says "oops
let me reset your data plan" when called on it.

I proved it by only being in airplane mode and used wifi calling, and seeing
that data was being deducted from my account when I wasn't using cell data.

~~~
wlesieutre
It's a shitty system, but they openly admit to doing this:
[https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-1680](https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-1680)

 _If you have a plan that doesn 't offer unlimited calling, calls made over
Wi-Fi Calling count against your plan minutes. For Pay In Advance prepaid
lines, calls made over Wi-Fi deduct from the plan bucket just like regular
calls._

~~~
eclipxe
That’s one thing but he’s saying it’s counting Data. I can’t believe that.

~~~
samstave
Believe it. They confirmed it last night when I spoke to them, they changed my
plan without permission - tried to swindle me, but I got them to revert my
data plan... too much to type on mobile, I'll come back and post more.

------
throw7
Recently I looked into moving some family members onto cheaper plans. I did
look at freedompop, but decided to try mintsim; freedompop seemed...
"sketchy".

But the problem was I ran into barriers for byop. The 1st phone was a verizon
phone, which, while unlocked, they disabled access to configure APN settings.

The second phone was a net10 android one phone. When I called them, they said
they couldn't technically unlock the phone and the best they could do would be
to send me $5 dollars for it.

~~~
rb808
thanks mintsim actually looks great. Aside from the $15 2GB/mo LTE, unlimited
2G is gold, is good enough for getting messages, email and traffic in
navigation.

------
mfrommil
"but neither they nor FreedomPop can record or monitor calls as long as only
FreedomPop users are participants."

If Freedompop has a couple million customers, chances are that 95+% are not
calls only involving 2 Freedompop customers... So 95+% of Freedompop
customers' calls are likely monitored and recorded by Sprint or AT&T. This is
scary.

------
rocky1138
The money shot, albeit unsurprising:

"FreedomPop collects data about users’ backgrounds and phone habits."

------
dougmwne
I've actually had surprisingly good luck with their AT&T LTE sim. I use Google
Voice as my primary phone number, so as long as I have an internet connection,
I'm golden. The Freedompop sim goes in a burner phone that I take to the beach
or out on the water.

The trick here is to realize that they are basically a scam company and treat
them as such. I used a temporary credit card number to prevent any unwanted
charges. As long as they're willing to give me a backup LTE connection for
free, I'm willing to take it. When they inevitably implode, oh well.

------
mabbo
> There are limits on monthly usage (500 megabytes in the U.S.) and caps on
> calling and texting (three hours and 500 messages).

I think I'm paying something like CAD$40/month for this level of service in
Canada.

------
cs702
The details may be complicated, but the answer to the question is the same as
for other "free" services:

If you don't pay for the product, YOU are the product.

------
PascLeRasc
Ting costs just a little more than this, but I had amazing customer service
when I was with them, and pretty good coverage. They were super helpful with
porting over from Verizon and back to them a few years later. Back in 2013
when I started with them they would help you look on eBay for a compatible
used phone, but I can't find that on their website today.

------
lasermike026
Remember NetZero?

------
eof
freedom pop is sketchy AF. without clicking that link, based on my experience
its: hiding fees, making it difficult to cancel service, not actually
canceling service once the service has been canceled.

------
etaty
FreedomPop is operating on a scamming shady level by not being honest about
what they are selling.

They don't give you a real phone number, just some app you need to use to
call.

Avoid them.

Edit: Is it how hacker news community is? downvoting because I tell the truth
how their service is? I had the experience of getting charged for months
without warning. They use your credit card, instead of direct debit in the UK
so even more annoying for cancelling. And no requiring customer to read every
details of your contract is not fair. Fair is an important part of any
contract, finding you are getting a VoIP number is not normal.

~~~
ReverseCold
It's real data and a VoIP number, looks okay to me. I thought they make money
off the no confirmation "upgrades" with monthly fees.

While sketchy, it is actually free after the "activation fee" etc.

There was also ring+ which shut down, pay a few hundred up front for 5GB data
"for life" \+ a real non VoIP phone number.

All in all unless you can't afford cell service at all, it really isn't worth
the hassle (no real phone number, just VoIP so it gets rejected for
verification).

~~~
wyldfire
If you take the price I paid for RP data and divide it over the number of
months for which I had service, it still comes out with a competitive rate. So
I'm not too disappointed there.

------
akhilcacharya
I had read about FreedomPop when it first launched...I'm surprised it has
lasted 4+ years now.

------
walterbell
Is the Sprint/FreedomPop network compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile phones?

~~~
jdhawk
I have an unlocked T-Mobile iPhone 5s that I put a Freedom Pop sim in as a
"guest phone" for my visiting Non-US Friends and Family.

It seems to work just fine. It is strange that its not a real phone number,
only a VOIP style app - but it still works with iMessage and WhatsApp, and
they can make and receive calls in a pinch.

~~~
tedmiston
You mean FreedomPop can't make / receive normal phone calls, like through the
iPhone phone app?

Can you send / receive text messages to short codes?

~~~
jdhawk
If you use the FreedomPop app, yes...using the native dialer and messages app
for SMS, no.

------
cwyers
TL;DR: It doesn't.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

(I suppose a corollary: in the negative if grammatically appropriate)

------
sweep4r
FreedomPop in Spain was a free service until recently. It was completely
unusable. They were selling Three (UK) cards that worked here in roaming. The
internet service simply didn't work. They were assigning telephone numbers
they borrowed from another company. That company didn't have a licence to lend
their assigned numbers, that was illegal, so they had to stop providing their
services and I suppose they'll get fined, big time.

Now they stopped giving that free service, and you have to pay. I don't think
many people will pay anything. It's a scam.

~~~
GranPC
Huh? I have two FreedomPop SIM cards, which I made a one-time payment of 3 €
for (with no monthly fee), and it's been mostly reliable so far. Are you
saying they're gonna add a monthly fee, or is the one-time payment new?

~~~
sweep4r
[https://bandaancha.eu/foros/freedompop-dejara-sin-
servicio-c...](https://bandaancha.eu/foros/freedompop-dejara-sin-servicio-
clientes-1727421)

I received an email regarding this this morning.

~~~
GranPC
Oh wow, what a trainwreck. Thanks for letting me know -- I didn't receive
anything!

