After months of promises and constant confirmations in the tech media, FreedomPop has officially launched support for the iPhone along with support for LTE in the iPhone 5, as well as support for the iPhone 4S. FreedomPop will sell refurbished iPhone 5 models and customers will be able to use their own Sprint iPhones through its BYOD service, with the requirements that they have clear serial numbers and be off-contract.
The FreedomPop iPhone 5 will be sold for $349.00 plus $6.99 shipping. It runs on Sprint’s 3G and LTE network with voice calling handled by a custom FreedomPop VOIP app designed specifically for the iPhone that also serves as a self-contained VoIP app that will function as an over the-top service with its own phone number, as a way to lure customers on different carriers to its extremely low-cost service from conventional carriers.
Currently, the service offers the following access plans already being offered on its Android phones, which also work with the new over the top iOS VoIP app with new phone numbers being assigned to each new user:
- Free Plan: 200 voice minutes, 500 texts and 500MB of 3G or 4G data per month.
- $10.99/month or $79.99/year ($6.67/month): Unlimited voice minutes, texts and 500MB of monthly data
- Additional data: 2.5¢/MB or $10.99/month for 1GB extra (1.49GB total)
With these latest developments, FreedomPop is poised to put even more pressure on conventional carriers as the addition of both the iPhone and LTE support means that its focus can move towards improving the VoIP service as well as begin to compete in the increasingly crowded over the top messaging application market, since the app assigns a unique phone number for each user, which may be attractive to a specific segment of users that are looking for either a separate number for backup use, or are looking for a messaging and voice option that can function as an alternative messaging and voice service.
