Eugene's observations

FreedomPop have at last launched in the UK.   The standard free package is 200 minutes, 200 texts and 200MB of data a month and is guaranteed to be free for life.   They have plans for folks who use more airtime and they are competitively priced - especially if you sign up during their introductory trial period. 

You can roll over any unsued date to the next month.  At £1.49 a month, it doesn't cost a lot, but it is more than free.  You can roll over up to 500MB of unused data per month, and store a total of 20GB of roll over data in all.

You can share data with friends and family, but only if they're on FreedomPop.  You can sign up to receive usage alerts so that you won't incur any additional charges, and you can be assigned a virtual international phone number so people in other countries can call you for free.

https://www.freedompop.com/uk   takes to to a place where you can select the type of Sim you want and buy it for about a fiver.

Claimed benfits include:

• Free calling app with free phone calls to anyone in the UK and anyone in the world with FreedomPop app
• Free texting app with free messages to any UK mobile number
• Free UK phone number to take with you anywhere
• Free SMS app to stay connected with app and non app users alike
• Free international phone calls to up to 50 different countries around the world
• Use Freedompop as a free second phone line
• Make free voice calls and send free texts anywhere over Wi-Fi
• Try our Free Basic Plan (includes 200 Texts, 200 Mins -- 100% Free for life!)
• Turn your iPad, iPad Mini, or any iOS device into a phone. Make free phone calls and send free text messages to anyone.
• Free Wi-Fi texting and voice calling
• Free texting and voice calling back to the UK when traveling abroad
• Save tons of money on your mobile plan with free texting and free voice calls
• Make HD-quality phone calls on Wi-Fi. Also works over 3G and 4G connections
• No up-front costs, contracts, or hidden fees
• No advertisements
• No spam
• We don't share your number with any third parties

However there are things to note:

• It only works on Android based or IOS phones (which covers about 90% of them)
• It's VoIP provider using mobile data.  No GSM/3G calls/texts.  That therefore means you won't be able to make/receive calls where signal is weak.  So network coverage is smaller than 3's but still not too bad.
• It's not pre-paid. They keep your card details and will charge it for any out of allowance calls/texts/data so consider paying for usage alerts if you may exceed the free threshold.
• There is currently no number porting - so you can not retain your current mobile number.
• There is a one time £6.99 charge for shipping the SIM and activation.