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back to article Intel puts cash behind Wi-Fi-first smartmobes

Chipzilla's mobile phone silicon is so popular it's taken the step of funding a network operator to buy a custom-made smartphone based on its SoFIA chipset. Nobody's talking how much money FreedomPop is getting from Intel Capital, but it will be enough to create a “Wi-Fi optimised” smartphone that will switch to cellular …

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  1. Christian Berger

    Sounds like an N770

    It's advantage was that it didn't have GSM so it could be built and sold without the permission of mobile operators. It's disadvantage was that It didn't have GSM, which meant that you had to carry around a mobile phone and use Bluetooth to connect to the Internet.

    Edit: Sorry, I mean the N770

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  2. James Micallef Silver badge

    sort of makes sense

    WiFi is becoming ubiquitous, and usually even where you have to pay for it, it's cheaper than mobile data*. At the same time VoIP is getting better, and it's already more worthwhile for me to buy a data package only with no sms or call minutes, use VoIP and internet-based messaging, and pay for calls / sms individually and as required.

    I still see cell network being very relevant for mobile data (which will get cheaper as it's forced to compete more with WiFi) and 'guaranteed quality' and emergency calls. But smartphones SHOULD be optimised for WiFi

    * excepting some hotels that charge extortionate rates, but nowadays in most places paid-for wifi is provided by third parties, often the phone operators themselves, at reasonable cost

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  3. kotaKat
    Meh

    Stop cramming the bills, then we'll talk

    Now if... FreedomPop wouldn't operate on the "we're going to tack on unnecessary addons and featurepacks and hide the 'no thanks' checkboxes in really tiny print" model, they'd be golden.

    If you try signing up for their service in my experience there's multiple screens that offer "free" stuff that really becomes a hidden add-on. I think at one point I had tallied it to something like $15/month if you don't deselect everything (things like 'premium data', 'voicemail', etc) to get the "free" base service.

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