FreedomPop, the disruptive mobile services provider that focuses on offering mobile services cheaply or even free, unveiled a new plan to take advantage of the launch of the new iPhones this week. The company will offer its iPhone Only Plan to customers with unlimited talk, unlimited text and 1 GB of data for only $20 a month. Any iPhone user will also be able to switch to FreedomPop’s free plan, which includes 200 minutes, 500 texts and 500 MB of data a month.
The free plan will now also be available to UK customers, who can get 200 minutes, 200 texts and 200 MB of data, every month, for life. By completing certain third-party offers such as downloading a coupon or taking a survey, UK customers can also gain unlimited free data on their accounts. The free data can be shared with family and friends who are also FreedomPop customers, making the usage of data much more flexible than it is with other wireless operators.
“FreedomPop was built on the vision that everyone should have access to mobile services, whether that’s bringing innovative, free plans to U.S. users or expanding our free mobile service to the UK,” said Stephen Stokols, FreedomPop CEO and co-Founder. “We’re seeing a major industry shift in that consumers have more autonomy than ever before over where they purchase and how much they pay for their mobile devices and services, and we’re proud to have played a major part of that change. We’re ready to see the same shift happen in the UK.”
FreedomPop plans to extend its free plan to another five countries within the next 12 months and also partner with other mobile wireless providers across the world to offer free voice, texts and data to more people.
This seems like a more fair and better approach to giving Internet to the poor than Facebook’s Internet.org approach of allowing only a hundred or so websites to be accessed for free, while also stripping them of much-needed HTTPS encryption.
Right now, 200 MB of data isn’t that much, but it should be enough for chats and the occasional website visit when not at home or in range of a Wi-Fi hotspot. Over the next few years, as data becomes cheaper and paid plans start offering 10 GB or more of data, we could see free plans that include 1 GB of data or more as well, and FreedomPop is one of the first companies that want to enable that all over the world.
