http://www.ebay.com/itm/Moto-E-2nd-Gen-LTE-FreedomPop-Certified-pre-owned-/29...




This is a current 4.3" screen Moto E (2nd gen).    My wife loves a very small phone and she doesn't like 5" size phones, so for small phones this one seems good at $49 refurbed.

It is a FreedomPOP refurb that should actuate on their free network.   It is the current phone version with the current 64 bit chipset and better graphics that came out just this year.

If you are CAREFUL when you do it, you can punch up a totally free monthly service supposedly.

This FreedomPop is Certified Pre-Owned:

FREE - 100% Free talk, text, and data: 500 texts, 200 voice minutes, and 500MB of data free every month for life

I, personally, could live with this phone and plan.   I pay $125 a year for the plan I have now from Republic Wireless, so my payback for the phone purchase is only six months.   We are used to slow Sprint 3-G service, so there will be no real change to user expectations going to FreedomPOP unless FP is a total screwup company.

Issue and risk is "Will the 100% free Freedom POP thing go on for at least six months or will it end shorter than that?"

Example of a BS fee --- $0.99 monthly adder for "activation fee" which is charged if you do not use at least half of the 500mb of free data.

Sorta stupid sounding, huh?    What they are really saying is that they are losing their asses on you and have to try to break even by creating a new fee every once and a while.   This one is really saying "Since you don't even use half of the free 500mb of data,  you are a very poor chance that we will ever get to charge you any accidental overage charges, so we'll collect a bogus fee to get up to "break even" instead."

Still, even with the current BS fees you still pay yourself back on the $49 phone purchase inside six months and once you get your stuff set up right you get FREE phone service from Sprint for less than $5 a month from then on out.

I have two FreedomPop $49 refurb phones on the way, as I can work a system with the best of them and if it stays workable for 6 months I got my payback in the bank.

FreedomPop and Republic Wireless, these are the current low cost leaders in cell phone service.  

I have used Republic Wireless for a year now and I can vouch the $12.54 per line/phone is STABLE, real and actual.    Service with Republic Wireless is fairly good and you can actually email or text the RW people and they will respond back, especially if you start out at the new customer "questions" screen with a statement like "Which one of your phones has XXX you name your problem XXX working 100% correctly right now?   My wife is totally pissed because of XXX you name your problem XXX and wants her Galaxy S3 back from Verizon and I don't want to do that."

         Tec Support comes on screen almost at once when Sales hits their go button.


So, what prompted me to try to use Freedom Pop?   Why do it now?

https://forums.freedompop.com/discussion/13135/byod-free-unlimited-talk-text-1gb
-data-plan-every-month-limited-time



What's Included?

Free Unlimited Talk, Text, & 1GB Data Plan every month (reg. $19,99/month)

Plus, Free Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Activation (reg. $20)

Just a One-time top-up credit of $20 when signing up!

Now, ask me if I believe it?

   Hell no, but I can see having a couple of FreedomPop in the stable that might make some sort of decent service off my local router, which is what I use all the time anyway.  The $49 phones are a whole generation more modern that what I have now, with better wifi chips/antenna, etc.

BTW, this particular 1 gig of data con is leading you into signing up for a $20 a month data plan, which isn't what you really want to be doing.

So, I just paid $94 to get two of the refurbie Moto  E gen 2 phones so I can try it out for real, kick its tires.   See just how close to "free" I can really get some call from anywhere on wifi cell phone service.

(yep, every cheapskate has to have a hobby, right?)

Potential advantage to FreedomPOP is that they include DATA (500 meg per month) into the freebie service.  500meg of data on RW costs $5 a month.

Both charge taxes and fees, RW totals $2.25 a month per line and FreedomPOP is more than that (and seems to change/shift frequently also).


Current known monthly "equivalency" stack up of $$$$$

                                                 Republic Wireless                               FreedomPOP

Cost per line for basic service                   $10.00                                                 $0
Required taxes                                           $  2.25                                               $ ??
Added on fees so far                                 $   0.00                                            $0.99
(likely more will show up)
Cost for 500meg of data                            $  5.00                                                  $0

Fixed one shot to buy low end phone        $150.00                                              $49.00          
(Ebay is used by both to sell their refurbs)

I use a company called Consumer Cellular (it's marketed toward "older" people  ) and they use AT&T's towers. They have a new Moto E for $80: https://www.consumercellular.com/cart/phones/options/1/637 and, while the plan won't be "free", you can get 250 minutes for $15 and 3000 texts and 500MB for $10 more. I have their $10 0 minute plan; minutes are $0.25; and 300 text/30MB which is $2.50 and my bill tends to be about $16 a month after taxes.

Also, don't forget than a brand-new unlocked Moto E is $119.99 direct from Motorola: http://www.motorola.com/us/smartphones/moto-e-2nd-gen/moto-e-2nd-gen.html. Get one of those and you can use anybody's SIMs.

Consumer Cellular is big up in that area.

When I moved to Quincy Illinois from Florida (first time), I had T Mobile, and you could a signal in the center of town.
T Mobile was great in that they gave me the codes to unlock my phones (Razor's back then).
We went to Consumer Cellular and paid about $55 a month, it is a local area based company using the towers of its competitors, but lower signal rates. If you are not a big data users, it is the stuff to go with.

My CenturyLink internment expires in March...  
Can I transfer my number?...

Talk to me like yer' training a monkey... a chicken....
I'm paying $65 a month for internet and phone...
I use the internet... the phone, well,... I'm not chatty...
I'd be happy to dump it...

Serowbot wrote on 01/25/16 at 22:16:46:



Talk to me about $65 covering phone and internet.   I take this to mean you have a phone plan that includes some data.    You need to find out off of a bill or a statement (or off your phone itself) how much data you are actually using.





Whooooaaah Nelly !!!!!

Century Link ---- damm you are talking about a land line phone !!!!

You can't bust up that paring -- Century Link only sells internet if you take the phone service.

You are in the stone ages still --- and you have to get rid of your land line phone thinking all together.   Nobody has land line phones any more ..... not even us old people.

Step 1 --- find out how you can get high speed internet service into your home where you live, without a "required" phone line getting slammed up your keister by the phone company.

Next, I can't imagine a more expensive internet service than Century Link ---- ouch !!!



SEPARATE THE TWO ITEMS --- BUY THE CHEAPEST INTERNET SERVICE YOU CAN GET AND THEN GO BUY THE CHEAPEST CELL PHONE PLAN YOU CAN GET.

I pay $39 for decent internet service (my wife is addicted to streaming on Roku while she does stuff on an iPad and on her phone all at the same time while I am upstairs doing the same thing, so I need fairly decent internet service to the house).  

Mine is Time Warner "Normal" speed, which is cheaper for basic internet than Century Link.  You might be able to get away with "Basic" speed which is cheaper still at $19.99 on sign up special.  

If you stream video while doing other things, get enough internet to do that.

HOWEVER, a basic service plan at $19.99 is in use at my mother-in-laws house and the only time she "slows down" is at Thanksgiving and Christmas when every one of the 8 grandkids has his phone out and all the women are banging on their iPads playing a game together while the TV is constantly streaming Downton Abby.

You might swing cheap at sign up, as they will always let you upgrade.  
You might be able to run a $19.99 Time Warner plan with no sweat.  

You won't know unless you try.

This is all true, and you get a read for your local coverage by asking for a Sprint coverage map for your state.

You also check for coverage as part of step #1 in signing up for FreedomPOP.

You need also to do a speed test of your connection off your new device while it is still a sub-month old puppy so you can return it if it just plain SUCKS speed-wise.

Be warned, FreedomPOP is a 3-G system so it CAN run on 4G-LTE if that is all that is out there where you are, but it will default to 3-G if that is there too.   Also be aware that the totally free stuff is WiMax based, which is a 4-G legacy system that is phasing out all over the USA right now.   Your fall back for WiMax is 2-G which is very very poor.

FreedomPOP is re-pricing their plans to base off of 4-G LTE which is why some of the plan pricing has jumped up recently.


=========================================


Unlocking the Wifi Magic of these new low end plans -- it means when you stop for a piss you can get a Wifi signal at just about any burger joint now-a-days and that unlocks your phone for endless use even if there isn't a Sprint tower around anywhere.

Supposedly you can put an app, a FreedomPOP app from the Playstore,
on ANY Android phone and do this neat little trick ????    

Ditto for travel into foreign nations -- the cheapie Wifi phones will work on anybody's Wifi at no additional cost in any country, where as your big boys like AT&T lite you up BAD for international roaming charges from the very get go and their stuff doesn't always work with the local carriers.

This is not me -- it is a EDITED posted walkthrough of how to do it off the internet.   Screens have changed and the plans have changed, but the advice is sound -- the on line screens are a problem so do it verbally with customer service over the phone and KEEP ASKING FOR THAT MONTHLY TOTAL UNTIL IT COMES OUT TO ZERO.



HOW TO GET IT SET TO $0 A MONTH (FREE):

I ordered this FreedomPOP from Amazon or Ebay. When it's delivered, you get a Quick Start Guide. In the light blue bubble on the paper, it says that if you didn't get it directly from FreedomPop, like me, you get 2 options:

1. Activate your device online
2. Activate your device by calling

Do NOT activate it online. Activate by calling.

If you're interested to know why, read on. If not, skip to the next paragraph. By default, the free trial is picked in bright green. You can get over this by clicking the shaded out 500 mb plan all the way to the right, which is the truly free one. HOWEVER, when you get to checkout, you notice it has forced you into what's called "FreedomPop Premier." You cannot remove it from your shopping cart. It's free for 30 days, but then you pay $25 in advance every 3 months (at about $8 per month). Avoid the headaches of trying to cancel and trying to get your money back by not getting FreedomPop Premier in the first place.

Call 888-701-1353, Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm. If you can help it, do not call during lunch hour. EVERYONE calls during lunch hour, so you have to wait hours! I called at 9am and only waited 2 minutes.

Tell whoever picks up that you want to activate your device. They'll transfer you to a sales rep.  What you have to do is CAREFULLY REFUSE all the adder items and REFUSE all the "free for the first month" stuff and KEEP asking what the monthly total is and insist that it should be ZERO.   Expect the customer service person to have problems with their computer screen, as their system automatically adds stuff back in and ASK THEM REPEATEDLY TO CANCEL EACH ADDITIONAL ITEM as soon as they recognize it.   Record who your customer service rep is -- you may need this information later on.

NOTE:

You'll be charged 1$ on your credit card after this call. I called back and asked why, and was told it's to check to see if the card works. He said I would get refunded. I'll continue to keep tabs on my credit card, as should you. By the way, I recorded all my calls --- I did this because I read a review of someone being charged for a feature that they had already disabled. According to him, when he called, the customer service person basically just called him a liar. He could not prove otherwise without his recordings.



                                                                                                     

PEW !!!
I posted this yesterday and then I slept on it -- had me a "scraping the floor clean up the junk" dream from 15 years ago.   These are Kaizen clean up dreams from us in plant management having to clean up an UGLY area in the plant (put on your grubbies for a week and scrape and clean and toss away generations of junk and old parts saved by now retired maintenance people "just in case").   Yep, in some cases before you could paint the floor you had  to SCRAPE the layered crap up and then steam blast it followed by walnut media blasting just to get it down to bare concrete so the paint would stick.

Woke up feeling like FreedomPOP was the oily floor scrapings from a Kaizen event.   Go through all the BS and in the end you wind up getting some minor amounts of free data over what the Republic Wireless competition offers.  

Their competition is Republic Wireless, a Google offshoot that has a clear reputation of customer service and excellence as opposed to shysterism.

Republic Wireless deals with Sprint as an NVO reseller with Sprint as their tower supplier.  RW has just upped their basic plan costs and features just a wee bit due to Sprint closing out their 2-G and WiMax as service offerings.   Republic Wireless is still 3-G based, but Sprint is going to close out 3-G in the not too distant future when it too goes over the technology dam.

FreedomPOP has just lost their little niche using the antique Sprint WiMax "4-G" as the basis of their "free 4-G offering" and is having to roll up in features -- cost is rolling up also at the same time.

If my phones have not shipped, I will cancel the order.   If they have shipped, I will cancel anyway because the free plans touted in the Ebay posting no longer exist.  

FreedomPOP is really just the oily floor scrapings from previous waves of tower technology .....