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+--- Thread: DEAL or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) (/showthread.php?tid=189165)
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DEAL or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) - space-time - 03-17-2016
Deal or Meh? please post that Meh T-shirt. Thanks
http://slickdeals.net/f/8577554-freedompop-byod-free-unlimited-talk-text-2gb-of-data-per-month
Re: DEAR or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) - Rick-o - 03-17-2016
Definitely a Dear!
miley-laughing001:Hey! You corrected the typo! Killjoy!
Re: DEAL or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) - Winston - 03-17-2016
I tried to take a look at FreedomPop a few months ago. Had a ridiculous round trying to get some answers to questions from them. Eventually just gave up.
Re: DEAL or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) - pRICE cUBE - 03-17-2016
Maybe I am looking around correctly. Does anyone know if an iPhone 5 GSM will work with this network? They won't show unless you input information about the phone.
Re: DEAL or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) - Winston - 03-17-2016
pRICE cUBE wrote:
Maybe I am looking around correctly. Does anyone know if an iPhone 5 GSM will work with this network? They won't show unless you input information about the phone.
That was exactly the question I could not get answered.
FreedomPop uses the Sprint/Clearwire network. I am pretty sure later iPhones can handle pretty much anything, but the iPhone 5 had distinct GSM and CDMA models:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_5#Network_compatibility
Only LTE overlap was on band 5, and the GSM phones had no CDMA support, whereas the CDMA phones had GSM support so they could be used outside of the U.S.
So I think it's unlikely a straight GSM iPhone 5 (i.e. AT&T/T-Mobile models) would work with FreedomPop.
Re: DEAL or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) - space-time - 03-17-2016
I tried to enter my ATT iPhone 5 IMEI and I got an error. They want an EMEI which I assume is the CDMA version of IMEI, but I don't know for sure.
Re: DEAL or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) - pRICE cUBE - 03-17-2016
The answers on this freedompop website involve a lot of digging and few answers. From what I can gather, you need a GSM phone since it is run off the Sprint Network, I think. I don't have the phone with me to input the info so I can't tell if this iPhone 5 GSM model is compatible.
You can port your number for a one time fee of $10.
Re: DEAL or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) - Winston - 03-17-2016
pRICE cUBE wrote:
From what I can gather, you need a GSM phone since it is run off the Sprint Network, I think.
No, you'd need a CDMA iPhone 5.
Sprint and Verizon are traditionally CDMA, not GSM, carriers. GSM originally used a different technology, TDMA. Until fairly recently Sprint and Verizon phones did not/could not use a SIM card, except for a couple of "international" models that had a GSM phone built in as well for use abroad.
This has changed two ways:
1. LTE (which is a CDMA technology) has been adopted by all the carriers, although not necessarily on the same frequency bands. LTE is now part of the GSM standard.
2. Expensive smartphones like current iPhones contain both older CDMA and older GSM radios, as well as LTE, so a single phone can be made and sold for use on any carrier.
A GSM iPhone 5, even though it's LTE, will likely not work with Sprint. If it worked at all, it could only work where there is an LTE signal - it would be unable to drop down to, for example, a 3G or 2G CDMA signal in an area that does not have LTE. And, again, it only has one of the LTE bands needed for Sprint. There may also be an issue that LTE is only used for data, and voice goes over older CDMA. In which case a GSM iPhone 5 likely would not work at all on Sprint.
(A further wrinkle about the iPhone 5: early GSM models, from AT&T, lacked a frequency that T-Mobile was using for a different 4G system from LTE. When T-Mobile finally got iPhones, Apple started adding that frequency to the phone. So some older, originally AT&T, iPhone 5 models won't work as well on T-Mobile, even though T-Mo has now set up a lot of LTE towers. The other 4G system shows up on a T-Mobile phone as "4G" instead of "LTE", but can be just as fast, or faster, than LTE.)
Good luck.
- Winston
Re: DEAL or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) - Winston - 03-17-2016
ps: Unless what you mean is a Sprint CDMA iPhone 5 that also has GSM. That should work on FreedomPop.
Traditionally the CDMA carriers have been pickier about allowing a phone not made specifically for their network to work on their network. Whereas GSM phones, once unlocked, can work on any GSM network. (Given limits like 2G GSM going away, and supporting necessary frequency bands.)
Re: DEAL or NO DEAL? FreedomPop: BYOD: Unlimited Talk, Text, 2GB of Data Per Month Free ($20 Top-Up Req.) - Bill in NC - 03-17-2016
It's great for data & presumably text (I didn't text when using FP).
For voice, well, voice calls are over VOIP & I've never been happy with that on FP or any other MVNO.