OK, let's check out the FreedomPOP Android App since that is the basis for all the current advertised truly 'free' offerings.


http://www.androidcentral.com/freedompop-offers-unlimited-access-its-wifi-net...

FreedomPop offers unlimited access to its Wi-Fi network for $5 a month

So, $5 after the intro period instead of really 'free".    This is exactly what Republic Wireless offers as their lowest cost Wifi ONLY access plan.



The only remaining price difference between FreedomPOP and Republic Wireless is the 500 meg of data which is worth ~$5.00 a month.

There is supposedly a speed difference, 3-G vs 4-G, advantage to FreedomPOP.

There is a phone cost difference, with a current generation refurbed FreedomPOP costing less than half what a used Ebay Republic Wireless phone costs.   But this comes across as a special short term deal, since dropped -- but apparently cheap phone offers do come up occasionally whenever they get too many phones in stock.

BEWARE:  FreedomPOP loves them little unannounced adder fees, like the .99 access fee which is now an acknowledged formal fee.    So your $5 just went down to $4 a month.



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



Both Republic Wireless (the good guys) and FreedomPOP (the BS guys) will save you a killing TON of money compared to AT&T, Verizon.    They will cut a Sprint or T-Mobile bill down by a third.

The difference between the two is your peace of mind and about $4-5 in raw cost at any given level of service.

FreedomPOP is more desperate and is trying much much harder than Republic Wireless at this point in time.   Republic Wireless is now acting more and more like Google Fi lite, which defines their offerings and their general pricing now.

As FreedomPOP struggles and flails around, they will occasionally drop a good price on stuff that lasts about a year.   They are erratic in their billing practices, and require you to call in to protest any weird charges that you see showing up in your monthly bill.

Republic Wireless will act like a solid Google derived company, update your phone to the next Android version, etc. etc.   Your monthly bill is what you agreed to, no monthly upsets when you see it.


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


PAYBACK PERIOD,  with me knowing more about it ......


Better phone, 500 meg of data, faster data speed --- cost savings per month $4.00 going to FreedomPOP

Phone cost is $49.99 each

$49.99 / $4  =  Payback period is 13 months based on what we know now.

I think I will try it out -- there is no substitute for ACTUALLY DOING IT.  

I still like the free 500 meg of data and the better data speed, but I do realize this is a marginal cost improvement while still having to deal ongoing with a BS loving company.


RISK LEVEL    ..... is that FreedomPOP will fold up or totally change their plans inside 13 months.

I would say what I am investigating is the current state of low cost and "free" as currently expressed by somewhat real providers.

I did this a year ago and I hit gold with Republic Wireless.   Very gold.   Very real.

I'm doing it again this year and looks like I am hitting brass with FreedomPOP instead of gold or silver.

Point is, unless you try about once a year .... you get bupkiss for anything new or better.   Jest stuck forever on the same old stuff.

    ..... even brass is better than bupkiss.


Badwolf has a new freebie candidate as an Android App from Magic Jack.    

I just charged up my old Galaxy S3 so I can see if I can get me some free Android action from FreedomPOP or from Magic Jack on a dead, no service cell phone.

Cr@p!...  Maybe I'll just make do with stupidphone from Tracphone...
I now have 3,000 minutes backed up on it...

I don't understand any of this stuff...
Just can't get into phones and apps and texting over wi-fi...

I thought MagicJack was for using a regular home phone on internet?...
It uses cell phones?....
Does it work?...

MagicJack is for a home phone over your internet. You must have broadband from somewhere. The app for your android phone allows you to make calls over any wifi like you were on your home phone. It cost about $60 for me to buy the unit, transfer my home number, and the first year of service. I just renewed for 5 years for $99. Was paying $36 a month for basic home phone from ATT. Had to have it to get dsl. When I went to cable internet for $34.99 a month (same as I was paying for dsl)  and MagicJack my total bill went wayyyy down. I have the tmobile prepay cell phone if I REALLY need it. Keep in mind, I only use a phone as a PHONE, not to surf, text, or play games.  If you are using your phone for everything, and are on it whenever you are breathing (like most teenagers). You are gonna have to pay SOMETHING! Well maybe you could get a ''Obama phone'' if you qualify, but if you have saved any of your money instead of spending it on drugs, you won't qualify. Or free housing or food stamps. But I digress.

Yep, I did the Viber thing on this same out of service phone and it worked great for outgoing calls when you know you at a spot with good wifi available.

Folks trying to call you, not so hot as you are out and about a lot (no stable wifi to carry the call).

The kids all text each other now instead of calling, as text gets picked up by the next wifi zone you go through and reads through and is stored on your device.

I gave the FreedomPOP people the 1/2 hour they said they needed to get me all organized in their system and then I turned the phone on for the very first time.

I was asked to choose my wifi from a listing of area wifi that could be seen, and I selected my own and gave it the password.

I was prompted to put in my Android gmail address (you got one if you have an Android device) and immediately Google proved how great it was by offering to restore all my stuff automatically from my Google Drive backup.   I said YES, and Google mirrored my existing Republic Wireless Moto G on to the FreedomPOP Moto E.   All of it, every setting, app, every feature, picture, you name it, all of it set up and working the way it does now.  

Several of the items needed updating as the original version was screwy on the new phone (old phone was 32 bit, new phone is 64 bit) but that shook itself out fairly easily and I was prompted for the new 64 bit version of the apps in question.

Since it is my old phone in essence, the learning curve is small.    

Thank you Google -- it took you 20 minutes of downloading but it would have taken me a week to manually put all my various toys back into commission.

FreedomPOP requires an extra cost adder for voice messaging.  Oh well, I didn't need that anyway -- just shoot me a text instead.

So far I can turn off cell data and run the whole phone just fine off of wifi and only when I need data do I turn it back on.

The main trick is -- just turn my cell data on only as needed.  

500 meg will last me a month, easily, apart from some stupid accident leaving cell on and hitting web sites or doing a little YouTube streaming that is part of a web site that is being visited.

Phone calls on wifi are fine, calls on "natural" unaugmented Sprint voice service (2G ????) are kinda scratchy with some background noise & trash --- but it works OK so far.

If I had known all this, I wouldn't have burned that initial 18 meg of data setting the phone up, as it was all Playstore update minutes as the apps all had to be downloaded and updated --- and because cell data was "on" Playstore used that instead of wifi (which was also on but didn't get used by Playstore as Playstore uses cell data by default).