Friday, July 11, 2014

FreedomPop In International Expansion

Los Angeles-based free mobile phone service provider FreedomPop, the startup backed by Mangrove Capital, DCM, and Atomico, has made its first international expansion, saying Thursday that it has linked with Dutch carrier KPN. FreedomPop said it is launching into a European test market in Belgium, and has plans to expand to the UK, Germany, France, Spain and the Pacific Rim over the next few months. FreedomPop offers up free--or more accurately, freemium--mobile phone service to users, letting them access a mobile data network for free up to certain data limits. In Europe, FreedomPop looks to be skipping the complexity of phones, and says it will instead offer a SIM-based free data plan and free voice and text via an "over the top" (OTT) app. The company said it will initially offer 500MB free per month in Europe.

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