How FreedomPop is separating voice from data on its new VoIP phone service

FreedomPop launched one of the country’s first all-Internet protocol (IP) mobile services. Consequently, it has to deal with an interesting problem facing all future IP mobile operators: If all your traffic is running over the same data connection, how do you distinguish between voice, SMS and internet traffic so you can charge accordingly?

The company is solving that problem by working with Telespree, which provides a cloud-based monetization service for carriers. Basically, Telespree is picking apart all of the CDMA and WiMAX (and eventually LTE) data traffic that traverses FreedomPop’s phones. That way it knows not to count a VoIP call or an IP SMS message against a customer bucket of megabytes. That all seems rather simple, but teasing voice out of the data stream is just a first step. FreedomPop is a ‘freemium’ operator: it’s giving away 500 MB, 200 voice minutes and 500 text messages to its customers for free, but it plans to offer value-added services on top of those core communications apps. FreedomPop will eventually start letting its customers trade and earn minutes and texts like they can data, FreedomPop CEO and co-founder Stephen Stokols confirmed. But the more interesting idea is how it could combine those freemium and currency models using Telespree’s technology. Eventually, the big operators will be able to offer similar kinds of enhanced communications services when they launch their voice-over-LTE networks. But it’s doubtful they will adopt the same kind of pricing models that carriers like FreedomPop is experimenting with. FreedomPop and competitors like TextNow and Scratch Wireless are mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) meaning they’re only renting time on another carrier’s network (in all three cases Sprint’s). To them, mobile megabytes and minutes are the expenses of doing business. For the network operators, selling data and voice plans is core to their business strategies.