Hop On Claims It's Offering A Cheap WiFi Phone
We’ve pointed out repeatedly why we have trouble believing anything that Hop On Wireless announces. The company has been around for quite some time, but we might have lost our ability to suspend our disbelief about the time the company was showing off repackaged Nokia phones as its own “disposable” ones, or the time it announced deals with major retailers after holding a single exploratory meeting. Then there was the lack of filing income tax returns and (oh yeah!) the situation where the CEO was arrested for fraud. So, forgive us if we’re a little skeptical every time we hear a Hop On announcement. The latest is that the company (which just dropped its dot com status) is offering a $39 WiFi phone. Of course, “offering” may be a bit confusing, because normally that means you can buy it — but it doesn’t seem to be possible to buy one yet. If you follow the links in the press release, you go from site to site with lots of talk about features, but no way to actually purchase the device at all. One assumes they’re trying to target resellers of some sort (unlikely to be carriers, as the last thing they want is a compelling, cheap WiFi phone that takes minutes off their networks). However, you would think that a company like this would want to announce an actual deal to sell the phones, rather than just saying they’re now available.
