[GRLUG] cell phone question

[Matthew Seeley]

I have heard of Republic Wireless,

They work off the Sprint Local network (no roaming allowed), so you'll get
coverage anywhere a Virgin Mobile or Boost Mobile phone would work, when
off wi-fi. (Most cities, some country, but not much in Northern Michigan)

And the phone there selling is a pretty decent low-end smartphone. Not
great, but decent.

The cap is low, but fair for the price, and you might not have much of a
problem with the cap, since their CDMA network is very light on data,
you'll usually only get dialup to ISDN speeds in West Michigan (50k - 150k
down). It's not real "3G" speeds the way you might be used to on Verizon /
T-Mobile / AT&T

And, like Mike, I haven't used their phone specifically, but I have used
WiFi calling (both the old UMA access, and T-Mobiles new "WiFi calling"
app) and they both work decently. There's some lag, but not horrible.

If the Wifi access worries you, you can get the "Republic Wireless" pricing
without the Wifi directly from Sprint by purchasing the $35/month Virgin
Mobile plan

Alternatively, If you've been with Verizon a while, you can call Verizon
retentions, and they may give you your own Femtocell
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/accessory?action=gotoFemtocell(Sprint
gives these out pretty easily, and mine works beautifully)

If you do buy the Republic Wireless phone, the coupon code "welcome19" will
knock $100 off the phone price, and is good until November 27

I'm curious where you are that you get bad Verizon coverage -- they usually
have the best coverage in the area.


--
Matthew Seeley
Threadlight Systems
PO Box 2909 Grand Rapids, MI. 49501
(616) 328-5649



On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 9:58 PM, Benjamin Flanders <flanderb at gmail.com>wrote:

> Has anyone in the group heard about Republic Wireless, and the
> wifi/cell phone plan they provide.  I think it sounds intriguing.  I
> like the idea of $19 a month plan, but mostly I like the idea of the
> wireless/cell phone hybrid.  Right now the verizon coverage in the two
> spots I am at all day (home and work) totally blows.  I get dropped
> calls, I get calls that don't ring, you name it ... it happens.  If my
> phone had wifi (internal femto cell?)  I can get full strength calls.
> This would be in the places I am at 90% of the time which all have
> great wifi coverage.
>
> My reservations are: this is a new untried business, and the voip
> calls.  The last time I used voip, which was probably 8ish years ago,
> there was noticeable and rather bad lag.  I understand that calls are
> now mostly voip behind the scenes, but that is using multi-thousand
> dollar dedicated machines, is consumer hardware near that quality yet.
>
>
> Share and Enjoy
> Ben
>
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