FreedomPop Messaging Phone/SIM

This app WILL work, however, it's not for folks who aren't tech savvy. You must enable all app permissions as well as notifications in each category, as well as enabling popups. Config channel needs to be active with the symbol in the status bar, or else you won't get some notifications. Be aware that on Android 10, it will not wake the screen when the screen is off. You'll need to turn sound on. Also, set up the app while on cellular data. Otherwise calls will not work when you're off wifi.

I was never able to activate their "service". Each time I tried (on my PC), they wanted to charge 99 cents for "activation", but there was a little check box, which is checked by default, to "add $10 data". Apparently, if you uncheck this box, you will get an error message; you go back and try again, and the box is checked AGAIN. Also, the app on my phone keeps popping up a notice to activate, trying to launch a browser to get you to pay up. Oaid $1 for the SIM at Target, so cut my losses now!

App crashes all the time. Sometimes it hangs and I miss calls because it doesn't ring. I have to kill and restart the app to make people can reach me. It's frustrating not knowing if it's working or not. It also completely messes up my cars Bluetooth, so I had to disable my phones Bluetooth. The only reason I gave it 2 stars is because the texting seems to work okay.

You get what you pay for. So as a free limited phone service, if you are careful, it works, but there are hoops to jump through and it's not simple to keep it free. If you're willing to navigate all the nickel and dime rules you can get free phone service with tiny mobile data allotment for free. Not recommended for people who want simple standard (expensive) phone plan. Doesn't play nice with native text messaging apps but it is free service if you're careful.

I installed this app on the smartphones of my two children. The SIM card is inexpensive and it works. I have had some problems with inconsistent messaging and calls. The app is just okay. It works but it is not great. My biggest complaint is that the screen does not rotate at all. The screen is very small and narrow on the watch face. The watches I got are pretty big and have the area to actually have a pretty good interface. The screen is about 2.5 inches wide and about 1 or 1.5 inches tall. With no rotation, the screen stays stuck on the smaller aspect of the watch face. Fix that and I would increase my rating.

I'm revising my review. I have a Freedompop phone and was having trouble with this app. I realized I had Android 8.1 data saver turned on. Once I excluded this app and the native phone app from data saver, it works perfectly. Be aware if you aren't on one of the paid plans, there will be a lot of ads and messages asking you for money and subscriptions. I'm on a paid plan and don't see the ads on my phone with the paid plan but get a ton of ads on my other Freedompop SIM phone on a "free" plan. Its really easy to make a mistake and you've suddenly paid for something you don't want.

The SIP app is unfortunately unreliable. Problems seem to occur when the phone switches between 4G and Wifi and vice versa. The app doesn't seem to reconnect to the SIP service when the network changes, so you end up not receiving calls and get error messages when you try to make a call. End up having to force stop the app and restarting all the time. Too frustrating to be worth it, even for free.

April 2021 Messaging app crashes when you try to open it. Says General error communicating with server. Been going on for a week now. Data still works, but unable to make calls or text. I'm on a prepaid year of service which auto renewed. I would not have kept this. 5 months left. April 2020 Messaging app crashes when you try to open it. I am on a prepaid year plan. Application started having issues and was requesting that I update to new version. Once I did that messaging will no longer run.

I didn't even have an image in my message as far as I know, but I got a pop-up from the app selling me on MMS service. This wouldn't be that big an issue, but on hitting cancel, the app had deleted my draft altogether (the expected behavior would be backing out and allowing the user to remove the image from the message). The app also eats 1.22 GB of space on my device, which I find excessive.

Basically, YGWYPF. Updates sometimes rolled out without proper testing and there is no way to report the problem without paying for premium service. Lots of underhanded tactics used to push services on you. But it works and I've managed to stay 100% free (excluding a one-time $15 deposit) for nearly a year. If you only need voice / text rarely and do most everything on WiFi, the spotty service is usually worth the hassles.

a nice idea. but this app slows down overall performance of my phone and is not super reliable. also glitchy and slow. it gets hung up sometimes. unsent messages keep reappearing even after the conversation has moved on. ads are placed so you have no choice but to click in them. overall it seems very undeveloped and those developers put in list enough money to RIP people off. you pay for upgrades thinking life will get better. but it doesn't. don't waste your time with this app.

I have freedompop just as a backup emergency phone. I don't use it much. From time to time I use it just to see if it works. Many times it does not. 1st you always get into some "free" trial but when you cancel all of a sudden you need a password to change the plan. How did my plan change and get signed up for extra stuff to begin with? But apparently upgrades don't need a password but downgrades do. 2nd It basically voice over data only. You need this app in order to make any calls. Many times you got to restart the phone to get it to work. It's not reliable and I don't trust the service as an emergency phone. 3rd Since they updated the app (two times now I am on 302) the service does not work at all. Phone is useless for a few days now, thank god I have the free service. 4th Many times when you downgrade from (free trials) or higher plans, they will charge you $20 to downgrade. This is not refundable, they claim that the unused money can be used as a credit. But reality is it never shows up as a credit. Its just a fee they charge. So far my "free service" has cost me $80. I have all my settings correct. Sometimes I will get a small mystery charge on my card.

The messaging app crashes from time to time, but that's really the only negative. it's equally easy to use as the default messaging app. The minutes/texts/MB of data left bar seem to work pretty well. I honestly like that this app uses VOIP to do calls over wifi because that's a good part of how they keep the service cheap, which I 100% support.

Deceitful company. Not to be trusted. Keeps sending me messages saying messages can't be downloaded without action from me. Click the message and you get a pop-up to sign up for visual voicemail, a premium service. If you click cancel you continue to receive the message over and over. Only way to stop it is to uninstall the app. Even the free plan isn't worth dealing with this garbage. Update: I updated my app as company suggested and still get same message over and over.

This service is a piece of s___! I have had so many bad experiences with it. Most common problem is the "network unavailable" error even though I have 4-6 BARs of reception. How the f___ could the network be unavailable with almost full reception?!?! My advice pay a larger carrier; that's what I did. Update: I was told to update the app version I'm using. Have done so, and I have encountered the same issues. Maybe I'm just unlucky with phone services.

Service is always low where I live, so the person on the other end can never hear me well. Sometimes, depending on where I am, service will jump to the full triangle and it will be fine, but i feel like an explorer going around the city searching for the treasured full bars signal. I purchased an annual plan, I can't quit now. When my data gets low, it shows my plan switched to what appears to be a limited monthly on the app and for the time I can't make calls or texts. It turns off and on.

Only benefit is that you can get some free data and calls,a nd can use it over WiFi so wherever you are in the world. However the app is extremely unreliable: calls come but you hear nothing or they drop; you lose internet connection in many places; voicemail (for which you pay extra) does not function properly, you get to pay for all kinds of extras, your account gets deactivated for reasons still not clear to me.... and of course, there is NO CUSTOMER SERVICE to address any of these issues. So, if you are expecting important calls, you cannot rely on Freedompop. And, they forced many users to transfer to another paying service recently, and the process was a disaster. They lost my phone number in the process, a number I had had for years.

The app auto updated and since then it has completely stopped working. I was in mid conversation with people and now it looks as though I have completely cut them off. The app worked well before and if they can fix this quickly I will retract my one star but as of now it is just eating up space on my phone and preventing me from being able to contact those that I need to contact.

latest version - can no longer make or receive calls. @#$"**'&+ please revert it back! Well. it is July 13th 2019, and your app is still pretty much unreliable for making or receiving voice calls on AT&T, even after updates. It is a good thing I do not need to make calls frequently, but still, once in a while it might be nice. Unlimited calls, ha!

Since the last few updates, I cannot receive sms and calls over 3g/4g until I get access to WiFi. Moreover, I'm unable to make outgoing calls anymore for the past week. I was happy with the 5$/month service until their recent update ruined the functionality. I've reinstalled the app several times in hopes that it might start working, but it never helped. So this is it, I'm moving to a different mvno carrier. At least I'll receive a reliable service for just two more bucks a month

I live out in the sticks and while the data service and text always worked well enough, the phone coverage was iffy and when you did make or receive a call, the quality was pretty poor. There was usually a lot of lag on the line and often my voice or the other person's was broken up. I always found the freedom pop messaging app a pain in the posterior. It was forever inisisting that it had to be the default messaging app, asking me to sign up for a caller id service and demanding particular settings. Sometimes it would throw a fit and stop me using the other sim/network in my phone. When the free service was changed for the basic plan in summer 2018, I was disappointed. But I stuck with it for a while because I'd had plenty of free data pior to that, and it seemed that a gig a month for 3.50 wasn't a bad deal. But when the messaging app got really militant, stopped me making calls on my other sim (again) and demanded that I contact customer support before I could use it, I decided that enough was enough. I ported my number to a different network, and today I closed my account :c/ Thanks for the free data FreedomPop. I wish you every success.

I can't see the dial pad so can't make calls. Perhaps due to latest update.Some calls show up in the phone app with 1970 dates. Weird. Lost a few houes troubleshooting, with zero results. Sorry, it needs to be more reliable, even if 'free'. After the fix, I tried calling using the app, but slways get an error message. Seems like still not working. I have Google Puxel phone. The app is working today March 8th, and call quality was great.

App crashes when I try to open a message. I can no longer read any messages. If I try to mske a call it never works first time. I usually have to sync my account and then it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. This has never been a reliable app. Don't know where they get their developers from. Worst apps I've ever used. Customer Service takes many days to respond if they bother at all.

The workaround for this latest update bug is to accept the free trial of Voicemail at the end of the Messaging app update process, and then later go into your account services and cancel Voicemail. That's the only way I got the Messaging app to work again after the latest update. Come on FreedomPop, test your software before you force the update on us. It's a nice app, when they don't break it :-)

I am grateful for the service. I get a great deal on 10g of data per month. I've never had any unusual issues with spotty service. However, calls sometimes don't work, I have to manually refresh my voicemail. Using text and calls in one app is cumbersome. Several times a week, I will receive a text hours after it was sent.

The light blue color choice of all freedompop app user interfaces are horrible. Im literally too embarrassed to use the app in front of friends. If the service is going to have to require a seperate messaging and coloring app other than the preexisting app on our phones, at least choose a color everyone can enjoy like all white or black and white. Its such a simple change that can be easily done too...

An artfully designed con. First, you sign up for a 14-day trial, but the trial period begins when you order the SIM, not when it arrives. You won’t find that mentioned during the order. After a few days with the SIM I got a charge for almost $100 on my credit card. The touted free plan doesn’t show up in the app or on the web site. There is no support number, of course, so I went to cancel online, which they have designed to be no easy task. First they tell you that instead of cancelling you can switch to the free plan — the only place they mention it. When I chose to do the free plan I was instantly charged $20, which they list on their site as a “Credit - Account Balance.” When I saw that I went back in, and with some effort cancelled the account. FreedomPop is the definition of disreputable.

Overall functional, if you don't text/call much. App crashes and glitches often, then texts will repeat in the text display. The display isn't the most aesthetically pleasing, nor is the delivery of the texts. Voicemail sometimes doesn't provide notifications. It would greatly improve my opinion of the app if they fixed the crashing & repeating error, otherwise this app is a 2 star app.

I've been running this app for a while. They did an update in July 2019 which broke it for some duel sim phones. It simply says 'activation step required' and nothing will get rid of the message or make the app work. I emailed the support people, who said it was known about, and linked me an earlier version of the app as an apk. It's now August 2020 and this bug has still not been addressed. The support people can take several days to reply, and that's if you can find their contact deets.