My Experience with Freedompop
I live outside of Chicago so there are a lot of options for mobile high speed internet. My cellular carrier is Sprint which has amazing LTE service and I’m getting on average 24Mbps down but there tethering plan is not worth the monthly cost for my usage. I first heard about Freedompop via a podcast called Tech News Today a couple of years ago so I started to get familiar with it back then but really didn’t have a need for it at the time. I would use mobile internet when I need too, which is mainly during commute to and from work to work while on the local rail service. I tried tethered to my phone in the beginning but founded it stupid to pay so much to use so little of my mobile data plan. I tried did from November until January and then I figured I would pick up a Freedompop online for a great deal. I was leery at first with the fact that runs on the Sprint WIMAX network which use to be owned by Clear Wireless but I figured let’s give it a ride and see it was a small investment oppose to keeping on paying Sprint. The cost of hardware was 25 bucks which included shipping, first month of service, what they call Freedompop premier, and 2GB of data for the plan. After that all that would cost me 20 bucks. But I figure I would cancel and drop down to the free plan of 500mb of data after the first month. The first thing that impressed with the quick time to delivery, I ordered my unit on a Monday afternoon and received it by Thursday via FedEx oppose to UPS Mail Innovation or UPS Sure post or some other hybrid with the USPS.
The first time I used the service was that weekend while on a road trip to southern Illinois along I-55. I needed to download some information and figured I would give it a try and was shocked it worked and the speeds were pretty good out in the middle of nowhere. That following week while on the train heading home from work we struck a pedestrian I broke it out again and got really good up and down speeds. I was able to work via a VPN connection on my laptop while streaming the White sox game with a solid connection for about two while the police investigated and did their thing and then continued along my journey home. Toward the end of the month I had about 60mb left of usage so I figure let’s keep on this plan. This where the Freedompop premier which is an extra 8.99 kicks in it’s a bundle of all their a la carte services such replacement for the device if it broke, unused data rollover, data limit monitoring and some other stuff I can’t remember right now. I didn’t really use it February and I forgot to cancel so my unused data rolled over again and then in March I worked late a lot and took a slower train home and watch a lot of Hulu and the NCAA basketball tournament during the ride home. Shockingly I still didn’t go over my data limit but I came mighty close to it.
So I’m hitting the 6 month mark with the service it’s been good times with a few hiccups. For example I find it annoying I’m not being able to get service everywhere but I know it’s because it’s on WiMAX. If you’re considering Freedompop go to this web address http://fpop.co/e4JT and will both get extra free data when you sign up.
@gogorichie We hope other delays occur more often than lethal accidents, but we’re glad to know we make your wait easier!
— FreedomPop (@FreedomPop4G) May 28, 2014
