Beware the Freedom Pop
Freedom Pop Hotspot
A few weeks ago, I bought into the Freedom Pop free 500 Mb hotspot device. It took about 2 weeks to get it, and I only really started using it a few days ago. Look how much I got 'charged' one day of turning it on.
This was from light web surfing and mostly doing work - does something smell fishy to you? It does to me.
I was working on Office Documents Mostly... Does this look right to you?Anyway, they automatically start charging 'top offs' at $10 per gb. I've already got charged $30 on a 'free' plan just testing the service out.
If I were you, I'd stay away from Freedom Pop. But if you are wanting to try it out, make sure you read their usage terms which pretty much teachs us that you can't get something for nothing (other than the $49/$99 fee plus shipping).
Update on 2013-04-15 22:28 by Mike Mu
Just an update:
So I have been using the freedom pop mobile hotspot for several months now and I thought I would share some observations. Since I've turned off the automatic top off, and made sure I turned it on and used it every month, I have not received any additional bills to my account. As long as you are aware to make sure you turn off automatic top off, and also to make sure that you use at least 5 MB of data per month, you will have the free Internet access promised.
As a side note, if you do forget to turn it on and use at least 5 MB of data per month, you only get charged $.99 for the month.
So now, the only real issues I have with the Freedom Pop are that the speeds are not as fast as the 4G that I'm used to, and also that 4G coverage does not work well around my home office.
Update on 2013-07-29 06:38 by Mike Mu
Even with auto-top-off disabled, you can / will still be charged for over usage of your free account as described here.
"
Why was my account charged with auto top-up disabled?
Even if you have the Automatic Top-Up Feature disabled, your account may still be topped-up if you surpass your monthly data allotment in the time when our system is unaware of your exact data usage, due to a delay in reported data usage. Your account is topped up to pay for the additional data used, instead of charging your payment for multiple charges of just a few cents.
Due to the slight delay in the reporting of data usage it is possible that you have surpassed the 100MB threshold and exceeded your monthly data allotment during the window in which your data usage was unknown by our system because of the delay. Because it doesn't make sense to charge your payment method repeatedly with multiple charges of less than a dollar, we deduct $10 from your primary payment method, credit your FreedomPop account with $10 and deduct the charges associated with the additional data used from this credit. So your account is not being topped-up, you are paying for additional data used. Since you have credit in your FreedomPop account greater than $2, your account will not be suspended and you can continue to use our services.
With the top-up feature disabled your account will be suspended if your data usage surpasses the 100MB threshold but does not exceed the monthly data allotment long enough for data usage to be reported to our system."
Earthlink Internet Access FAIL
This is what happens as I'm streaming a live video seminar, and uploading a youtube video at the same time. But once youtube uploading stops, everything is back to normal.
F-
Just so you know, even implementing QoS does not help the situation. Download speeds are reduced to near useless while the upload is in progress.
I do not recommend Earthlink here in So Cal.
Update on 2011-12-07 23:45 by Mike Mu
The above speed occurs with just the youtube upload in progress.
Update on 2011-12-08 06:35 by Mike Mu
This is with no load in the evening.
Update on 2011-12-15 08:38 by Mike Mu
Wow! Speedboost and a real upgrade in speed without switching from cable to fiber.
On Road Runner. I just test downloaded open office complete in 2 minutes!
Interesting Bit-Torrent, and peer to peer users statistics
New study Micro-analyzed among 18-44 year olds:
34% watch more movies in theatres, rent more movies.
24% buy more movies than average.
Tend to have more and better equipped home theatres.
Spend less time watching TV.
Do far more downloading and streaming of videos.
Tend to be early adopters.
Share more of their opinions online.
None of this surprises me. Yet the RIAA, MPAA, etc say downloading is bad, breaking the law when they should really be embracing this group of P2P users.