FreedomPop Launches “Free” Global Data Hotspot And SIM - and Competition?

[wolfbln]

Originally Posted by andy

If you use your allowances exclusively in a Feel At Home destination for any 2 complete months in a rolling 12 month period, we may suspend international roaming on your account, which means you’ll no longer be able to use your device or allowances abroad. We’d let you know if this were likely to happen first. If you spend a full month abroad but some of that time is spent in a destination that isn’t included in Feel At Home, this restriction won’t apply.

http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-...ase=obj(12332)

Well, we feature the 'Feel at home' option for a long time now on the prepaid data WIKI. We didn't receive a single report of somebody who had been switched off. This restriction has been in their T&Cs since they started FLH years ago. Officially, it's not for 'permanent roaming', only for occasional roaming which seems to be not strictly enforced.

People complain much more about their weird smartphone-only policy of their PAYG plans. Tethering and hotspot use is sniffed through packet inspection and blocked. This is not enforced on their prepaid Mobile Broadband plans. Many users are looking for ways to bypass this restriction, see http://androidforums.com/threads/how...etwork.542650/.

Now, the new Data Award SIM is listed in the Mobile Broadband section aimed at tablets and and modems. So they can't block tethering on it. But unlike their old Mobile Broadband plans, it has voice and text too. So, finally Three seems to overcome the split between the two product lines.

Giving 200 MB per month for free, i'm very astonished too that Three lets you register a max. of 5 Data Award SIMs on one name. Has FreedomPop really such a big impact in the UK now? I'm only reading about people waiting for their SIM. Even Three's default rate of 1p per MB in the UK and 10p/MB on roaming is unmatched.