If you live in The States and you’re looking for cheap mobile broad band, I’ve got good news for you…
I got an interesting email the other day from a new company called FreedomPop. They provide free mobile broadband. All you need is a compatible web stick or hot spot.
FreedomPop is currently in beta. You have to get an invite to participate. Mine came out of nowhere, and I have to admit, I bit on the line and signed up.
FreedomPop provides 500MB of free, unrestricted, unthrottled bandwidth. All you have to do is put a deposit down on either a 4G web stick ($50 bucks) or a 4G hot spot ($100 bucks). The device arrives via FedEx, and all you have to do is either plug it in or let it charge and turn it on. The device jumps on the network, and away you go.
The web stick works with both Windows and Mac machines with a USB 2.0 port. The hotspot allows up to 8 devices to surf; but with only 500MB of bandwidth on the free plan, you may want to watch what you do. If 500MB isn’t enough data for you, on FreedomPop’s pay as you go mobile broadband network, they do have plans available for purchase.
FreedomPop offers the following plans:
| Data Plan | Details | Most per Month (US Dollars) |
| Free 500MB | 500MB
$0.02 per MB overage |
FREE |
| Basic 1GB | 1GB
$0.01 per MB overage |
$9.99 |
| Casual 2GB | 2GB
$0.01 per MB overage |
$17.99 |
| Premier 4GB | 4GB
$0.01 per MB overage |
$28.99 |
| Premier 5GB | 5GB
$0.01 per MB overage |
$34.99 |
| Premier 10GB | 10GB
$0.01 per MB overage |
$59.99 |
The cool thing is that these are all pay as you go. However, if you don’t use it, you lose it. This isn’t like AT&T’s roll over minutes. You lose what you don’t use at the end of your 30 day cycle, so the point here is don’t buy more than you need. Only buy 10Gb if you know you’re going to use (nearly) 10GB of data every month. Suburban Chicago is sufficiently covered, so I should be good to go. I’m giving the free plan a shot and will upgrade as necessary. You can also buy “swing loan” bandwidth to get you over a hump on those months that you use more than you normally would.
I’ll let everyone know how things go after my hot spot gets here. If the speeds are decent and the coverage is worthwhile, then you may way to check for availability in your area and sign up.
