Most if not all of us have read a thread or two (or 50) discussing opinions on FP as a company and their practices, but I am one of the many that have had their free service for several years now and it has lived up to the "free" part and I have LOVED it. I have two accounts tied to 4G only plans that are or have fizzled away with the closure of the WiMax network and still continue to use the third account I opened with a 3G Overdrive device @ $3.99 a month and I think it is well worth every penny.

Here's the breakdown of charges per my order confirmation email:

Your Purchase DetailsDue Today: $29.99(includes taxes, if applicable)
First Month Service Cost: $0.00
Data Plan: Free TrialPremium 2GB (4G/3G)($0.00)*($19.99 after first month)*
Device:Netgear Mingle Mobile Hotspot($29.99)
Shipping Option:Free($0.00)

Additional Services:Freedompop Premier Free Trial($9.99 after first month)

So as you can see I will need to discontinue the Premier and downgrade from the Premium 2Gb plan to the Free 500Mb LTE-Only plan (and setup my FP friends to get to 1Gb/mo) in order to not be charged in month #2 and if you don't already know, it may take a while to ship. I'll post back my order-fulfillment experience upon receipt but after 24 hours, I'm still in the "order submitted" phase.

I have a Citi credit card that allows me to generate virtual account numbers and for deals like this, I think those virtual-acct #'s have a great amount of value in terms of peace-of-mind, so if you have the same, I highly recommend you use one with a pre-set allowed amount to place your order just in case something is misinterpreted during the order process.

With this offer, the plan is to lay out $30 and see if I can't save the $3.99/mo if I no longer need the 3G but no matter which way you slice it, IMO, you can't beat this price even if I ultimately reinstate/keep the 3G rollback.

I've been waiting to catch a price like this for the LTE device upgrade for a while. Everything else I have found (including FP's FREE LTE device upgrade) is =>$50 after the "LTE upgrade fee" they attach to the "free" device. This is a perfect example of where you can criticize FP for shenanigans, where their very slogan is "Free Internet with no catches", but at the end of the day, I'm a believer in the argument that they have to make money somehow and while I'd love for them to do a few things differently, I'm not their CEO either and I'm guessing there are some reasons for that .

Good luck to anyone who gives this a go!

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