Wikipedia's founder is bringing a charity-driven phone carrier to the US

Wikipedia

Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales is bringing a new MVNO phone carrier called The People's Operator (TPO) to US shores.

Working off of Sprint's network, TPO offers prepaid and post-paid cell phone plans and mobile internet plans. And if you sign up, TPO will give 10% of your bill to a charity of your choice.

"Instead of doing what other companies do and spend more than 10% of your money on expensive TV commercials and billboards, TPO gives 10% to something you care about," the company said on its website.

There are seven prepaid options, starting at $9 per month which gives you 250 minutes for talk and 250 texts, with no data. On the top end, you can get up to 11GB of data with unlimited talk and text for $89 per month.

For post-paid options, you get unlimited calls and text with five different data tiers ranging from $32 per month for 2GB to $86 per month for 13GB of data. TPO also offers two mobile data plans for tablets; $29 per month for 2GB of data or $35 per month for 3GB.

You can also buy a handset through TPO as well, with the lineup including iPhone 6, Samsung Galaxy S6 and HTC One M8.

A social network too?

While TPO was founded by Andrew Rosenfeld, Mark Epstein and Tom Gutteridge, Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales joined the company in 2014 as chairman and head of digital strategy.

TPO has been available in the UK for some time now, with Wales joining on in time to launch the MVNO in the US.

Wales is also responsible for spearheading TPO's new social network as well, which it says is "a community of people that are raising money for causes just by being part of it."

"It's an ad-free social space, that is supported by a one-of-a-kind mobile network."

The TPO social network works as an open platform where people can raise money for any cause, but also share photos, and connect and talk to friends or family, similar to Facebook.

It's currently in beta, and you can sign up without having to be customer of the phone carrier. Charity organizations can also set up their own pages on the social network, too.

Will you be signing up to the carrier or social network?

Via Mashable

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