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Red Pocket promises free service, for any phone, on any major network
Mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Red Pocket Mobile has acquired one of its competitors, FreedomPop. Red Pocket Mobile announced the move in a statement we received via email, and confirmed both FreedomPop and its UNREAL Mobile brand had been picked up in the deal.
Red Pocket Mobile, which was founded in 2006, is one of only a handful of MVNOs to support the four major U.S. carriers AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon (Straight Talk being among the others). FreedomPop previously supported only AT&T and Sprint networks.
In its press release, Red Pocket confirmed one of FreedomPop’s most interesting products — that is, a free monthly plan — would be available with any of the major U.S. networks. However, it isn’t yet clear how this will roll out, or whether this product would be the same as FreedomPop’s existing Basic 500 plan.
Basic 500 provides FreedomPop subscribers 200 minutes of call time, 500 texts, and 500MB of data per month. There are hoops you must jump through and other associated costs, including fees if you exceed the usage limits. Reviews.org has a good overview of FreedomPop’s free plans if you want to learn more; if you’re ever considering picking this kind of plan up, I recommend you thoroughly review the terms and conditions first.
Red Pocket said it will also bring its native voice service, “enhanced” billing controls, and live customer service agents to existing FreedomPop plans without disruption to their service.
This is an interesting move in the U.S. mobile world, particularly for those who’ve wanted to use FreedomPop’s free plan with T-Mobile or Verizon networks. We’ve reached out to Red Pocket for more details what this means for existing FreedomPop subscribers and its product portfolio. We will update this page accordingly.