It was virtually a year ago that we first heard about FreedomPop, a start-up developed on the manifesto that every American (yes, you) should have access to free wi-fi broadband. Ten months later, the pay-as-you-go service is releasing in beta, with “free of cost” meaning 500MB of information per month. For the time being, the touted 4G service will come thanks to Clearwire’s WiMAX network, but FreedomPop states it will switch over to Sprint’s LTE spectrum at some point in early 2013. In the meantime, though, you can easily anticipate rates anywhere between 4 and 10 Mbps down, and 1 to 2 Mbps up.

To use the service, you’ll need to either purchase or rent some compatible hardware. Your options include the “Flexibility Spot” hotspot capable of serving 8 devices simultaneously, or the “Flexibility Stick,” a USB dongle. Both of these are complimentary, however require that you take down a refundable deposit ($ 89 for the hotspot and $ 49 for the stick). As we formerly stated, too, the company will be offering $ 99 iPhone and iPod cases that double as hotspots, though these won’t in fact be offered for an additional 4 to 6 weeks. The iPhone variation, in specific, does triple-duty as a charging case.

If you do venture past that 500MB data cap you’ll pay $ 10 for each subsequent gigabyte. Packaged deals will certainly additionally be offered. As we had heard, though, FreedomPop is wishing to make back the costs of that cost-free data by selling premium services, with three to begin and more coming later on. At launch, these add-ons will include gadget protection (24/7 customer service and replacement service within 48 hours) and notification notifies if you will hit the information cap. You can easily also pay for speedier 4G, though the company’s claim of “up to 50 percent faster” performance is an unclear one, offered that the assortment of feasible rates is so broad to begin with.

There’s one last piece about how FreedomPop works, and it could assist if we drew a contrast to Dropbox, or Zynga, also. As you would in Farmville, you could make extra Farmville cash free of charge data by following with on certain activities. Watch a 20-second advertisement, for example, and you win 3 megs of data. Sign up for a Netflix trial and you get 1.2 GB contributed to your coffer. And, like Dropbox, if you recommend a buddy, you get 10MB for each month that pal stays on with the service. Finally, you can easily share data with a pal, however it really does need to be a friend: that individual’s e-mail address has to be in your contact listing.