Ok since Zaphod persists with the comparison with FreedomPop it deserves some finer analysis. Just as with trying to compare motor insurance quotes, the devil is always in the detail. What is included and what’s not? What are the real costs?
FreedomPop Basic Mobile
Firstly it is important to note that this mobile service uses VoIP for its calls/texts and as such is only available to smartphone users. That’s because you need their app to use it (a bit like Skype and Whatsapp).
This to be honest makes a huge difference to any analysis because very clearly, a smartphone, loaded with apps and generally used as they are for emails, sat nav, facebook and other social networking WILL use a huge amount of data vs a regular old “unsmart” nokia type phone.
This matters.
The Basic Deal/Cost
FreedomPop offer 200 texts, 200 call mins and 200MB of data each month for “free”
If you should exceed that 200MB data limit you will be charged 1.5p per additional MB of data used.
A key problem is that there is no way to know how much data you have in fact used which leaves you wide open to those extra charges. You DO have the option of buying into their Usage Service which comes at 99p/month, then you can see how much you have used.
Thus any reasonable assessment of the true costs of FreedomPop must surely include this additional service charge of (£11.88 per year).
There is an initial joining fee of £7.97
and if you want to transfer your existing mobile number over there is an additional cost of £4.99
By comparison, 1pMobile has:
No joining fee
No charge to see your usage
No charge to transfer your existing number over
General Data Usage
FreedomPop’s free 200MB of data is, for a smartphone laughably tiny and woefully inadequate even for light smartphone users. This is important because you will be charged 1.5p/MB for all additional data.
The USWITCH website offers the following guidance on smartphone data usage:
Low data user - ‘I’ll use it every so often, to keep up with friends and interesting news’ - 1GB/month needed
Medium data user- 'I need it for my email, social media and for entertainment’ - 3GB/month needed
Heavy data user -‘I rely on my phone for both entertainment and work’ - 5GB/month needed
The WhistleOut website provides a more detailed picture of likely data usage:
https://www.whistleout.com.au/MobilePhones/Guides/Mobile-broadband-usage-guide
It highlights the HOURLY data usage for typical smartphone activities and the appropriate monthly data allowance needed for such activities thus:
(Remember FreedomPop only give 200MB free per month)
Online gaming - 3MB/hr - Data allowance 1GB
Podcasts - 60MB/hr - - Data allowance 2GB
Web Browsing - 60MB/hr - Data allowance 2GB
FaceTime - 85MB/hr - Data allowance 3GB
Facebook - 80MB/hr - Data allowance 3GB
Music Streaming - 150MB/hr - Data allowance 5GB
Snapchat - 160MB/hr - Data allowance 5GB
Facebook Video - 160MB/hr - Data allowance 5GB
YouTube - 300MB/hr - Data allowance 10GB
Netflix - 250MB/hr - Data allowance 10GB
Instagram - 720MB/hr - Data allowance 20GB
As can be seen, a “free” monthly allowance of just 200MB is ridiculously small for a smartphone. You would burn through that allowance with 2-3 hours of Facebooking or web browsing.
Let’s do the math for the “Low User” that Uswitch suggests would need 1GB (1000MB) of monthly data allowance.
FreedomPop would give you 200MB free and you would then need a further 800MB on top which would be charged at 1.5p per MB. So that’s a cost of £12 for that month.
Follow that through for a full year and that’s £144 in data charges.
With the 1pMobile service you are charged a flat rate of 1p/MB with no free allowance so the 1000MB each month would cost £10 which is £120 per year, thus cheaper than FreedomPop even with its “free” allowances.
If you look at the math for the Medium (3GB) and Heavy (5GB) users then the FreedomPop situation looks even worse.
With FreedomPop the Medium user would pay £504 in extra data charges per year
The heavy user would pay £864 per year.
With 1pMobile the Medium user would pay £360 per year
The heavy user would pay £600
Clearly though these are ridiculously huge numbers and no sane user of a smartphone would entertain this kind of tariff. They would instead choose a contract tariff or “proper” PAYG deal.
A key problem with all smartphones is that they are full of apps and the user has little control over what those apps do. When you boot up a PC or laptop, the first thing that happens is a plethora of software applications go automatically hunting the internet to check for updates and download them. The same will be true of smartphone apps.
They will be pinging the network repeatedly, handshaking and checking for updates all the time eating in to the 200MB data allowance.
Overall I personally see this “free” service from FreedomPop as somewhat of a “data trap”. The monthly data allowance is tiny for an average smartphone user and so the true rate that applies here is 1.5p/MB vs 1pMobile’s 1p/MB
I want to be fair here and thus need to comment on the texts and call minutes.
FreedomPop offer 200 free texts per month which is 2400 per year.
With 1pMobile charging 1p/text that would equate to £24
The same would apply for the 200 mins of calls, £24.
The problem however is that data usage. That’s the clincher here. The relatively tiny amount (200MB/mth) of allowance is not going to be enough for most smartphone users and that’s where the costs spiral upward and make the texts and calls a negligible issue.
And none of the above even mentions all of the other charges that irate customers are being landed with. Nor the plethora of free trials and “offers” that they are plagued with and which they must be sure to opt out of in a timely fashion to avoid charges.
In the final analysis, had this FreedomPop service been available to ordinary “non smartphone” users, I would have conceded that at face value the free 200 texts and call mins were cheaper than 1pMobile. The data issues would not have applied. Even so the multitude of angry customers and poor reviews would have kept me personally away from the company.
As it is, being a service for smartphone users, I genuinely don’t believe that in any reasonable analysis of usage, that FreedomPop would be cheaper than 1pMobile. 1.5p/MB is not cheaper than 1p/MB.
For it to be so you would have to be a smartphone owner who had paid significant money for a sim-free unlocked smartphone, who had pretty much removed all the apps on it and who basically treated it as an old “non smart” phone.
That just doesn’t seem a realistic scenario TBH.
