Republic Wireless - Unlimited Everything for $20 a month... for real?

Matti Iveson · Top Commenter · Wasilla, Alaska
Calling Verizon and AT&T greedy oil companies is an insult to greedy oil companies.


Farhod 'Rockwell' Shahrezay · Top Commenter · Irvine, California
You're right, at least my gas works properly, unlike some AT&T phones...

Will Shrek Crowe · Parts at Jim Stutzman Chevrolet-Cadillac Co.
The fact that you suggested that ANY AT&T phones work properly is astonishing to me. I have them.. and i literally get service for about 20% of my day.


Jeff Martens · Top Commenter · Oregon
This is game changing. All they need now is more phones and I'm in.


Jeremy Young
If they really want to get this on as many phones as possible they should work with the Cyanogenmod people.

Nathan J. Brauer · Top Commenter · Lincoln, California
At this price point ($99+19/mo), there's no reason to not try it. You'll STILL save money if you buy their $99 phone now, then a month or two later buy their $499 Galaxy S II vs staying on the carrier at $100+/mo ($2400+ per 2 year contract) NOT including the phone.

Nathan J. Brauer · Top Commenter · Lincoln, California
I'll be buying one of these phones for every person in my family. Maybe even my grandma.


Sarabjit Singh · Top Commenter · CEO & Founder at AppDar LLC
I wonder if this will automatically work for wifi's such as Starbucks, which require you to agree to terms every time you connect.

Dean Blackburn · Top Commenter
Actually, at least on the iPhone on AT&T (Starbucks uses ATT Wifi), this step gets "handled" for me without an agreement popup - still get one with my laptop, but I think the iPad escapes the need as well... Which says to me it'd be theoretically possible to do this - but most likely AT&T would not enable it, given the clear competition factor.

Nathan J. Brauer · Top Commenter · Lincoln, California
Dean Blackburn - it's not just the iPad/iPhone. It's all mobile devices. I used my wife's crappy phone (that no one would ever account for when programming for individual devices) on it, and I had the same result as you did w/ your iPhone.

Seth Eheart · Top Commenter · UIllinois
great concept. hope it works. good luck guys. also, please go after comcast in the future.

Mark Bardolf · Brooklyn, New York
We're working on it at www.MarqueeHD.TV :-)

Per-Ola Selander
Interesting concept, and will likely work great for a few of us. But WiFi as such does not offer any "mobility", so unless reasonably stationary, you will be on Sprint's network.
Will be very interesting to see how the phone will manage to seamlessly connect between different WiFi APs, as well as hand over to the macro network.
Truly disruptive if a large number of users sign up, but this really do require that you know a bit about how the network works, or you'll be calling customer care (and that's where the expense starts). Regular (?) cell networks "just works" and that's the beauty (and the cost). It does not really require much of the user (yes, we know there are congestion issues in certain areas).
But at home always connected to WiFi, at office always connected to WiFi (iPhone as well as BBerry), so if bill is cut from $80 to $20, guess some inconvenience will be accepted.
We will for sure also see more of the larger carriers (read AT&T) work on offloading traffic onto WiFi hotspots, because it is relatively cheap, and badly needed in certain (congested) areas. And with automated access to an AP in every Starbucks, AT&T has a "technical" lead, but again, we are paying for that.


Justin Card · Top Commenter
Bait:
Unlimited voice minutes.
Unlimited text messages.
Unlimited data megabytes.

...See More


Matthew Earle
Those limits are while you are on the cell network which is statistically not that often. You could download 10Gb while on Wifi during that same month so it essentially is unlimited.


Eric M. Davis · Top Commenter
I just depends on where you are downloading and consuming most of your data. If it is while you are in transit, then this phone isn't for you. If it is while you are at the office, or at home, or on transportation that has wifi, then this is for you.

Justin Card · Top Commenter
I understand the nuances of unlimited access to WiFi that I already have access and unlimited access to Sprint's 1x/EVDO pipe that I pay for as part of my "Everything Data" plan. I also understand why most laptops now include mobile broadband radios and the cellular networks are rapidly building entirely new data infrastructure: WiFi is awesome, but it doesn't travel.

Eric- my phone spends a lot of time on WiFi, idling, while I use my desktop or laptop. It is when there isn't WiFi that my phone becomes a workhorse.


Arlo Gilbert
Nice idea, good way to drum up some press, no possibility that this will work.

James Rasmussen · Web Designer & Developer at Utah State University
I am excited to see the day that you're proved wrong, Arlo. This service is highly disruptive, and just like with any highly disruptive service, it's fighting against improbable odds, usually against large, powerful corporations. (Square, anyone?) However, this is what the cell phone industry needs: disruption. They're basically running a monopolistic racket right now, and that needs to stop. They're curbing innovation, price fixing, and sitting high on the hog while we pay through the nose. Yeah, this has the chance of not working. But this is what needs to happen.


Arlo Gilbert
James Rasmussen I agree with you on many of your points. I'm not rooting for this to fail, in fact I think it would be wonderful if it succeeded, but I don't believe it will succeed because it requires people to put a lot of thought into their phone (mistake 1) and there is a threat (mistake 2) that you might actually get kicked out of the club. Nobody can fix #1.... #2 however they could address, but only if they change their model of requiring a particular ratio.


Lori Carew · Valley Park Senior High
This would be perfect for me to finally get a price I can afford for my daughter who's in elementary still but feel safer with her having a phone, but not the large bill that comes with it. I'm going to try it! Why not instead of speculating, no contracts remember-so really nothing to loose here! Lori C.

Tushar Khandelwal · Community Developer at Producteev
Will the Google Voice app work as normal if I want to keep using my current GV number? Also, is it SIM card based, and if so, is it unlocked? What happens if I try to roam with it internationally?

Timothy Poplaski · Houston, Texas
It uses Sprint, which is CDMA, so no SIM card. There is international WiFi "roaming", meaning you could place calls over WiFi in France (according to their web site) but no cellular roaming.

For the majority of people that leave their city rarely, it's a non-issue. For those that it is an issue for...there are no good options. International roaming is lubriciously overpriced.


Nathan J. Brauer · Top Commenter · Lincoln, California
Timothy Poplaski - Good points. If you're international, in all likelihood Wifi coverage will probably beat your standard international coverage anyways. Even if I'm wrong with that, lets use a simple scenario: You're on a regular cellular plan roaming internationally in Vietnam. I'm going to guess that prices will be something around 50 cents per minute. How many calls are you going to make? Maybe a few -- and you're going to really keep them short! Now assume you're on "rewire" (republic wireless). How many calls are you going to make? As many as you well please for as long as you please! You just have to make sure you're on wifi.

Think about the disadvantages of both:
50 cents a minute vs. be on wifi

I think the clear winner (lesser disadvantage) is with rewire.

Tushar Khandelwal · Community Developer at Producteev
Oh, totally missed that it was roaming in Sprint. Of course that mean CDMA. I can't wait until they get roaming on other networks though (a GSM based one) so that you could theoretically use it even when there's no WiFi. I really want this so that I can buy the phone here and then use it abroad if I decide to move.

Of course, the most interesting part is that you can roam internationally on WiFi. To answer my own question, this means that you could just buy a WiFi hotspot when abroad and that would work / be awesome!

Nathan, I understand the benefits and your points are true, but I think it's wrong to assume that there's going to be WiFi everywhere, especially in a place like Vietnam.


Luke Monson · North High School
sign me up.


Nicolas Charbonnier · Top Commenter
They should provide a functionality to "download this file later when you are in a Wi-Fi zone" and display a map of available free Wi-Fi hotspots around you. That way, if you are eager to download the latest Twit podcast or do some HQ YouTube streaming, you could hold off, as well as re-download some spotify songs into your buffer.

Damian Andrade
I just posted something similar, but having to do with texts "what I'd like to know is if the phone allows you to keep [outgoing] messages pending until you log into a wifi network." If they don't have that they should definitely consider it! I like your idea too. +1


Jordan Buckley · Works at Mars Hill Church
I LOVE where this is heading! Can't wait to see how this disrupts the industry. I'm around wifi all day at work and at home, so it's ridiculous to have to pay extra for voice & texts. However I do use mobile data quite a lot; I stream music to my phone whenever I'm out, driving to/from work, on the bus, etc. Does this model have a place for users like that?

Timothy Poplaski · Houston, Texas
It might speed things up some, but I think the industry already knows charging for minutes is soon to go away.

Here are two things I would love to see happen:

1) "Family Data" - Let me buy a pool of data, to share between multiple devices. I'm okay with metered data for wireless, but that's ALL I want is data, to share between many devices (car, tablet, eReader, PC, whatever) as I see fit. I want a dumb pipe!

2) Class of Service - Let me pay for Priority, Regular, and Slow data separately. I could for example buy 500MB of Priority on VOIP ports, 500MB of Regular data on Web and Email ports, and unlimited dataon slow ports that I don't care if it's slow for things like app updates on another set of ports. This is a way to manage bandwidth between users that I think we could all be happy with.


Pamela Joy · Craniosacral Therapist at Stepping Stones Center
I know this system can work, because I used to have something similar with t-mobile. Only difference was, I paid THEM $10-20 per month for the privilege of my phone using wi-fi instead of their network, on top of a bloated monthly bill!


TaraGolden CustomVideos
interesting. i just wish i didnt have to pay $100 for a new phone..

Andrew Chen · Top Commenter · Chicago, Illinois
This is more or less what I do already, manually. I'm around WiFi all day, so I can use data and Google Voice SMS all I want. I pay <$10 a month prepaid for the little I do off WiFi.

But amazing way to disrupt a terribly stale industry!


Jonathan Yan · Seattle, Washington
Wi-Fi FTW!


Nicolas Charbonnier · Top Commenter
This is awesome. They need to get a distribution deal with http://FON.com/ to increase the number of hotspots automatically supported. Basically, each customer can choose to get a free Wi-Fi router if they live in a central place and if they promise to connect that FON router at home. And in exchange, FON would probably give Republic Wireless free or very cheap automatic access to its 3 million hotspots worldwide.


Nicolas Charbonnier · Top Commenter
What needs to happen next is Google design a White Spaces router for the FON network and that Google provides it for free or for $20 to everyone who live in strategic locations, for example near city centers etc, and that all new Android phones support the White Spaces network. That would really provide free or cheap unlimited bandwidth for everyone.

Dean Blackburn · Top Commenter
Will be very interested to see how well this is received, especially by folks who need/want to use "burner phones". Making VoIP calling automatic/invisible could be huge for drug dealers, prostitutes, etc... Not only would they be able to keep their cell/texting bills more reasonable, but I'd imagine it'll be at least a *little* bit harder to trace/record some of those wifi calls.


Jeff Martens · Top Commenter · Oregon
Say someone never adds their password protected home and work wifi networks. It is essentially a regular cell phone. If they don't make sure people add their most common wifi networks, they could quickly be loosing money. I assume they are buying the cellular bandwidth from another major company, right?


George FriendlyRealtor Byrd · LSE
I am wondering the exact same thing. I don't have Wifi at home, I only use my cell phone for internet and tether it to my laptop. I'd love to save money, but I'd feel a little guilty running up their costs. I wonder if they'd cut people off who didn't use enough Wifi?

Andrew Chen · Top Commenter · Chicago, Illinois
Is the much-improved data speeds and call quality not enough of an incentive?


Ryan Jenkins · Salt Lake City, Utah
George FriendlyRealtor Byrd, yes their site says that if you exceed the "cellular fair use" limitations they'll give you a warning and then help you find a carrier that better meets your needs.


Miguel James
This is a very very tempting offer. My only concern is that 150MB of data a month. That's not even 15 minutes of Pandora. That's basically the only thing holding me back on the offer.

Michael Quimby · Works at Sauder Woodworking
Dude, where did you pull that figure. Pandora for 1 hour at 128kb (HIGH!!) is like 58 megs - Mine (I roll @ 64kb) pulls about 25megs and hour.

Andrew Chen · Top Commenter · Chicago, Illinois
Streaming music on the go has always been a terrible idea IMO.


Perry Ahern · Top Commenter
You have the wrong data amount - 150 is the number of texts; 300 mb is the data threshold.


Carlos Leiva Burotto
http://becherry.com/ started this same wifi-carrier industry like 2 years ago on Belgium.

Jamie Martin · Tempe, Arizona
As an iPhone/Android app, seems nice

Yoni Ende · Top Commenter · Delray Beach, Florida
How is call quality? Last time I checked (yesterday) VoIP service was still spotty.

Abhijeet Gaiha · Top Commenter · SDE at Microsoft
Checked where? I use Skype and Google Voice on a daily basis and quality is no better or worse than phone networks.

Damian Andrade
I still haven't tried VoIP on Google or Skype but we have Vonage and it's constantly dropping calls.. not sure if it's Vonage or Time Warner Cable with the shoddy service. VoIP data is supposed to have high priority.


Diraj Goel · Vancouver, British Columbia
Wonder if Moblicity or another low cost mobile provider in Canada will clue in to this?

Ian Nelson · Wichita, Kansas
How do you get the "limited time" $99.00 price? I went to the order page and just see the 199.


Jason Kincaid · Top Commenter · New York, New York · 28,627 subscribers
Hi Ian, use the code 'welcome19'

Satish Bala · Chief Marketing Manager at Esparsha
I guess the hardware switches faster than app else an app should suffice.

Jason Schwab
No techie, do you have to login to each Wifi network to gain access?

Jason Kincaid · Top Commenter · New York, New York · 28,627 subscribers
I'd imagine it will save the password and automatically connect to Wifi networks you've previously used.


Jason Schwab
Thank you. I should mention though, I live in Nebraska....wifi is hard to come by...darn


Alex Salkever
Jason Kincaid Now if they did a deal with, say, Boingo of Wayport so you input one PW and then get access to all their WiFi points in cities / airports etc - then it REALLY gets interesting.

Abhijeet Gaiha · Üst Düzey Yorumcu · Microsoft'ta SDE
Alex Salkever Except Boingo ain't free either.