Republic Wireless $19 unlimited voice, SMS and data service

i'm going to bet that the phones are sold at a premium to subsidize the low monthly price.

whats the point ?? the world is gonna end on Nov 9 anyway.

Quote from ericnmu : This might tempt me from my $50 4G all you can eat VZW plan. no. did you read the article?

Wow, where'd that AYCE 4G plan for VZW come from?

hMm interestin... i work for Metropcs. I wonder how this one will turn out. Great Idea btw

Quote from jay_rm : There will be no incentive offered. Since the software to select systems is part of the OS of the phone, you will have no choice. Since WiFi is (basically) free access, they (the carrier) will not incur any costs if you run on a WiFi network. They will be mooching off someone else's BW just like you do when sitting in Panera or Starbux. There is NO WAY they can be a reseller of somebody else's data at that price point unless they offload the MAJORITY of it onto free access points. The numbers just don't work.

My point was that most wifi points are secured. Certainly in any residential area, most wi-fi connections are going to be from personal routers that are locked down. There are going to be a lot of budget-minded people who will want to use this as their sole home phone. With no incentive for the consumer to provide the password for a wi-fi connection, that puts a lot of strain on those Sprint minutes the company has paid for. Additionally, the company cannot just force wi-fi simply because a signal is in range if you don't know the password. There is no way for a phone to determine whether you know the password to an access point or not.

Even aside from that issue, how often will most people be within range of an unsecured wifi while making their phone calls? What about fleeting calls where the consumer initiates a call within wi-fi range but then moves outside the range of a wi-fi connection? Automatic dropped call? My incentive as a consumer would be to always keep myself on a dedicated cell carrier.

I for one, use UMA via a T-Mobile Blackberry and I love it. Faster download speeds when connected via UMA, and free international calling from any WiFi hotspot (I travel to Mexico often and call anywhere I want by just going to a bar, buying a beer, and hopping on their Wifi). I have zero issues with dropped calls.

Quote from jeepbrew : I for one, use UMA via a T-Mobile Blackberry and I love it. Faster download speeds when connected via UMA, and free international calling from any WiFi hotspot (I travel to Mexico often and call anywhere I want by just going to a bar, buying a beer, and hopping on their Wifi). I have zero issues with dropped calls.

I did this at the bahama's with an android device. free wifi for 15min with purchase at dunkin.
made calls back home free ( just used minutes ).

Quote from sdexperter : What about fleeting calls where the consumer initiates a call within wi-fi range but then moves outside the range of a wi-fi connection? Automatic dropped call?

I use UMA via T-Mobile, and when intiating a call and then moving outside of range of the router, it just switches to a tower. No dropped call. Plus, if travelling internationally, as long as the call is initiated via WiFi, you can then "roam" all you want on the tower and not pay for the call. So, walk into a public establishment with Wifi (bar, coffee shop, museum, etc...), dial number, leave Wifi spot, and keep talking. Receive no international charges on your bill when you get home

the wifi is going to drain the battery very fast, that sucks.

Quote from Superorb : We have Virgin and the data speeds are abysmal. Republic will run on the same Sprint network and likely be just as slow.

Slow speed is ok since it costs only $19/month. I use WiFi most of the time anyway.

Quote from sdr : whats the point ?? the world is gonna end on Nov 9 anyway.

Where did you get that information? Harold Camping retired from the doomsday prediction pulpit. From the article, "Three strikes, you're out."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/n...msday.html

Quote from isekii : I did this at the bahama's with an android device. free wifi for 15min with purchase at dunkin. made calls back home free ( just used minutes ).

Okay, that is an awesome use of WiFi, and one that I'll remember with my travels. My question, why did it use minutes if you were using wifi?

Quote from Nathan0490 : So lots of dropped calls due to it routing as many calls as possible through WiFi. Sounds like lots of handover issues between WiFi and voice network.

I guess you can turn off WiFi since it is an unlimited plan.

Quote from sdexperter : My point was that most wifi points are secured. Certainly in any residential area, most wi-fi connections are going to be from personal routers that are locked down. There are going to be a lot of budget-minded people who will want to use this as their sole home phone. With no incentive for the consumer to provide the password for a wi-fi connection, that puts a lot of strain on those Sprint minutes the company has paid for. Additionally, the company cannot just force wi-fi simply because a signal is in range if you don't know the password. There is no way for a phone to determine whether you know the password to an access point or not. Even aside from that issue, how often will most people be within range of an unsecured wifi while making their phone calls? What about fleeting calls where the consumer initiates a call within wi-fi range but then moves outside the range of a wi-fi connection? Automatic dropped call? My incentive as a consumer would be to always keep myself on a dedicated cell carrier.

I'm assuming it would use whatever wifi networks are stored in your network settings. That seemed kinda common sense to me. And once you move out of wifi range, just transfer the call to the nearest cell tower. That seemed like common sense to me as well.

Quote from Adrin13 : the wifi is going to drain the battery very fast, that sucks.

Not necessarily. If you're in an area with low signal strength, wifi can actually use less battery than your data connection, and it also depends on the hardware and driver code. The phone I'm currently using drains like crazy when on wifi because of the way the code is written, but on my previous phone, wifi was a barely a blip on the radar.

Quote from sdexperter : My point was that most wifi points are secured. Certainly in any residential area, most wi-fi connections are going to be from personal routers that are locked down. There are going to be a lot of budget-minded people who will want to use this as their sole home phone. With no incentive for the consumer to provide the password for a wi-fi connection, that puts a lot of strain on those Sprint minutes the company has paid for. Additionally, the company cannot just force wi-fi simply because a signal is in range if you don't know the password. There is no way for a phone to determine whether you know the password to an access point or not. Even aside from that issue, how often will most people be within range of an unsecured wifi while making their phone calls? What about fleeting calls where the consumer initiates a call within wi-fi range but then moves outside the range of a wi-fi connection? Automatic dropped call? My incentive as a consumer would be to always keep myself on a dedicated cell carrier.

Excellent points. I would be surprised to see if one can just initiate a call on wi-fi and then seamlessly continue the call on a cellular network. The call on the cellular network is circuit switched, a completely orthogonal technology to packet switching (that is the core of Wi-Fi operation).

Additionally, for those pesky airport pay-per-use Wi-Fi connections, there is now way to know if you are on one without pinging the network.

The 19.99 plan looks seductive though.