[wolfbln]

I really can't share this optimism about FreedomPop trying it again in Spain.
We have their offer in three countries now: US, UK and Spain.
Every decent review shows a very mixed bag so far. Basic data is quite cheap, but there are many strings attached and 1/2 of all customers buy additional allowances which are rather pricey. This is after all, how this company makes money.

The first reviews from Spain were horrid. As a novelty they teamed up with WhatsApp to offer a more widespread solution for VoIP. Basically a good idea. But it's generally not working.

Pero lo cierto es que los primeros usuarios del nuevo operador han reportado que la conexión es muy lenta, peor que usando una SIM de la propia Orange o de otros virtuales bajo su cobertura.

Traffic through Orange seems to be deprioritized and often it's not feasible to make calls at all. You need a certain speed for VoIP. Generally, speed with Orange network is good. So it's a FreedomPop problem. This is added by the fact, that they don't have access to 4G/LTE networks. Sure, getting a 2nd 3G network coverage like Movistar may improve the situation. But Movistar doesn't offer so much more speed or better coverage on 3G in Spain compared to Orange or Vodafone. All three networks are more or less on par.

The main issue remains that all traffic is routed through UK-based servers. This is like their US product resulting in very high latency/ping times of some hundred ms. They will not be able to bring this down considerably with any 3G network, not even with a 4G/LTE network, as long as they don't change their routing. This makes it very inconvenient, if all voice calls are continued to be routed through VoIP. So some voice calls face a delay of 5 seconds or more. This is like IDD calling more than 50 years ago. This is added by their billing problems with WhatsApp and a practically non-existent customer support.

So again, they have introduced a product to a local market, which simply doesn't seem to be ready for it. For a "free" allowance, users are willing to bear some burden, but are getting annoyed when the product remains to be faulty. After all, they want to sell add-ons based on the same product. They should have better marketed this product as a data-only option (without voice calls) like their international data roaming SIM in the first place. Adding voice calls from the start in Spain like this, just gets them more trouble than necessary. But they should have known these issues before as they are not new!

I really don't understand how it can be recommended right now. Only if you use it for 3G data only, are willing to accept a certain delay in transmission and stay within the free allowance, it can be a viable back-up solution after all. Getting it in Spain, UK or the US is not such a problem as they accept all internatl. credit cards and your plan will be linked to it. You only need a postal address for delivery in one of these countries.