FreedomPop joins unlimited cellphone wars – and it’s $10
But ‘Unreal Mobile’ plan offers only 1 GB of data
LOS ANGELES – If you missed out on Sprint’s $15-a-month plan for unlimited talk, text and data before the No. 4 carrier yanked it after just a week, FreedomPop would like you to consider its new deal, “Unreal Mobile.”
Unreal, launching Thursday, offers unlimited talk, text and data for $10 monthly, with a big asterisk. The data offers 1 gigabyte of high speed data; keep using, and your speed will be slowed.
The Unreal deal is the lowest price we’ve seen for mobile service and compares to $75 a month for one line of service from Verizon, $70 for T-Mobile, $65 for AT&T and $60 for Sprint. All four have consistent high-speed service. Family plans bring the rates to around
$160 for four.
After Unreal, the next cheapest deal comes from Mint Mobile, which charges
$15 a month for unlimited, with 2 GB of service. However, the fine print on Mint is that customers must prepay for a three-month period to get the $15 rate; after three months it goes to $23 monthly. Or, they can prepay for the year and be assured of the $15 rate.
Stephen Sokols, CEO of FreedomPop, says his rate is here to stay, and he also has two more deals for folks who want more data: $15 a month with 2 GB of high-speed data or $30 with 5 GB.
Sign-ups for Unreal will be done online, at the unrealmobile.com website, where existing users of phones on the Verizon and Sprint network can type in their IMEI number (found in the General section of Settings on your phones) and add service over the web. Sokols also is selling low-cost phones by Chinese manufacturers (Alcatel) for $50 and will expand to phones on the T-Mobile and AT&T network later in the year.
Best Buy, Target, Amazon and Walmart will sell his service online in the coming weeks, which is a big deal for his young company. Sokols buys the data from No. 4 wireless carrier Sprint and resells it. His entire business model is predicated on the belief that most consumers don’t use that much data. He knows young users are glued to video and other high-data hogs but insists the average American drives to work in the morning without using data, gets to the office, uses the corporate Wi-Fi during the day and uses Wi-Fi at home.
He cites a study by Morgan Stanley that the average data consumption among folks over 35 is between 1.2 GB to 1.7 GB a month. “If you’re over 35 and spending $60 for an unlimited plan, you’re wasting a lot of money,” he says.
The catch is that even at $10, your 1 GB of data eventually will run out, and then Unreal will slow your service. Sokols insists you’ll still be able to read emails and surf the web.
FreedomPop has been dogged by complaints about its free plan, which offers limited calling and internet via a smartphone app, and customer service. The company has an average 3.7 rating out of 5 stars on the Apple iTunes app store. One reviewer noted that you can’t use iPhone messaging via the app, don’t get ringtones or voicemail and that some services block numbers from Voice Over Internet calls. Others bemoaned FreedomPop charging $5 to chat with customer service or extra charges showing up on their bill for the free services.
Sokols says the $20 monthly stepup plan from FreedomPop offers voice calls and access to free customer service. Still, he concedes that FreedomPop’s service has “historically been poor” but that with Unreal Mobile, he’s invested in beefing up customer service and guarantees customers will be able to reach humans – at no charge.