Making Free Calls That Aren\'t All That Free

By ROY FURCHGOTT

FreedomPop's polished YouTube promotional video promises its Freedom Sleeve for the iPod Touch will deliver “fast and free Internet everywhere,” and that you can “make phone calls over 4G from your iPod anywhere.”

It seems a compelling offer, but let's look a little more closely. FreedomPop combines two pieces of hardware from different manufacturers and two pieces of software from different manufactures that results in - I don't know how else to describe it â€" a kludge.

Here's the theory behind the device. FreedomPop is a sleeve that fits over an iPod Touch. The sleeve is a Wi-Fi hot spot that connects to the Touch, and a WiMax receiver that connects to a 4G network. Very much â€" if not exactly â€" like what you can do with a MiFi or other 3G or 4G Wi-Fi device.

The problem with FreedomPop's claim that you can get “fast and free Internet everywhere” is that WiMax isn't everywhere. Not even close. To say the coverage has more holes than Swiss cheese is a grave insult to Swiss cheese.

As it happens, I am in a WiMax city. I still had to drive to a location where there was supposed to be good coverage. I found two spots where reception was good enough for FreedomPop's indicator light to give me the green for WiMax.

And yet, I was unable to make a call despite numerous tries.

The main reason is my mistake. I tried Google Voice, which I later found won't work with FreedomPop. I was told to go back and try Skype, but that would mean my call would no longer be free. I could use FaceTime, but that works only between Apple devices. There are other voice clients that allow for free calls if you want to hunt them down. The company said it will have its own voice app eventually.

Those are a lot of hoops to jump through.

I have to cut FreedomPop some slack. I was warned that the device they sent is an early model with glitches that may be ironed out in a larger production run (they are taking pre-orders now). In all fairness, I warned them not to send a product that isn't ready for sale.

The device is priced at $99 with 500 megabytes of data a month for life. You can buy a gigabyte of data for an additional $10.

Right now, I'd have to say this is an awful lot of work and money for an unreliable “free” data service.

But there is hope for FreedomPop and its users. In a year the company says it will move from the iffy WiMax network to Sprint's more robust 3G and LTE networks. By then it says it should have its own high-quality VoIP app.

This may be a good time to forgo first-adopter bragging rights.