kaila join:2000-10-11 Lincolnshire, IL |
kaila
Member
2011-Dec-23 9:21 am
Hard turn of their business model....I'm a Republic Wireless subscriber, and I just hope they've thought it through what this decision will mean for them, as this move now makes them the cheapest unlimited option in the US by far.
Time will tell whether it's sustainable to keep this, as it effectively removes any incentive to either maximize wifi or limit cell use. | |
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slckusr Premium Member join:2003-03-17 Greenville, SC |
slckusr
Premium Member
2011-Dec-23 9:26 am
Why?What was so hard about using wifi and having 500 minutes a month.? Especially for 20 bucks. I hope this doesnt ruin their business and if it doesnt only 20 bucks for unlimited?!?! man the rest of us are getting bent over by our cell phone companies if they can still turn a profit at that price point. | |
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| 25139889 (banned) join:2011-10-25 Toledo, OH |
25139889 (banned)
Member
2011-Dec-23 9:22 pm
Re: Why?it won't hurt BW. They're a HUGE company with deep pockets. They are the company behind a LOT of VoIP projects and actually are the sole company behind the GV service. | |
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RW customer
Anon
2011-Dec-26 3:23 pm
Re: Why?said by 25139889:it won't hurt BW. They're a HUGE company with deep pockets. They are the company behind a LOT of VoIP projects and actually are the sole company behind the GV service. Then why not do the world a favor and buy up Sprint ONLY for the backbone and infrastructure and gut all the other fluff? Dump IDEN sooner then later, sell off divisions they do not need to support their network needs (boot WOW to the curb and tell them to find someone else to carry their IP traffic). Dump the HQ in KC and Res VA. Can all but your network people and they would be doing us, the customer (both RW and Sprint) and the WORLD a huge favor. | |
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| | | 25139889 (banned) join:2011-10-25 Toledo, OH |
25139889 (banned)
Member
2012-Jan-4 11:46 am
Re: Why?by Sprint doing what you said- and moving to 1 office and getting rid of their customer support centers and starting over as an MVNE they'd be doing themselves a favor. They'd save COUNTLESS $$$$$ without having an actual customer service center for customers since only MNVOs would be the ones selling service. Sprint would be able to handle everything via email/trouble tickets submitted online as they would anway and be done with it all. | |
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openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
openbox9
Premium Member
2011-Dec-23 9:32 am
We'll See If the Company Can Make It WorkWill this work or simply begin the demise of this effort? said by Republic Wireless :As part of that legal amendment, everyone who has purchased or purchases a phone during beta will be guaranteed the opportunity to enjoy unlimited service, without fear of cancellation, until the end of beta. We wont end beta until we either achieve economic sustainability or become convinced that doing so is impossible. Emphasis mine. | |
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| FFH5 Premium Member join:2002-03-03 Tavistock NJ |
FFH5
Premium Member
2011-Dec-23 9:37 am
Re: We'll See If the Company Can Make It Worksaid by openbox9:Will this work or simply begin the demise of this effort? said by Republic Wireless :As part of that legal amendment, everyone who has purchased or purchases a phone during beta will be guaranteed the opportunity to enjoy unlimited service, without fear of cancellation, until the end of beta. We wont end beta until we either achieve economic sustainability or become convinced that doing so is impossible. Emphasis mine. Sure sounds like they are well prepared to abandon unlimited fairly quickly if all they draw as customers are the people who will heavily use cell data services. | |
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| | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
openbox9
Premium Member
2011-Dec-23 10:28 am
Re: We'll See If the Company Can Make It WorkYep. I don't see this venture lasting long. The company might be better off just limiting the service and charging its low price for the bargain hunters. | |
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| | | kaila join:2000-10-11 Lincolnshire, IL |
kaila
Member
2011-Dec-23 11:03 am
Re: We'll See If the Company Can Make It WorkThey do make money up front by charging a pretty fair premium for each phone sold. Helping them as well is their parent company Bandwidth is a CLEC with some existing deals with Sprint. Sprint offers direct google voice integration which necessarily means working with Bandwidth as they are the provider of GV numbers, and likely termination deals.
This may give them some leverage and a competitive advantage over typical MVNO deals on Sprint's 3g network, which I might add, is falling in value. Whether it offers them enough head space to last, we'll just have to wait and see. | |
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| | | | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
openbox9
Premium Member
2011-Dec-23 12:04 pm
Re: We'll See If the Company Can Make It WorkYou believe that charging $199 for each device is a "fair premium"? | |
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gnon1s1002
Anon
2011-Dec-23 12:59 pm
Re: We'll See If the Company Can Make It WorkI only paid $99 for mine | |
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| | | | | kaila join:2000-10-11 Lincolnshire, IL |
to openbox9
'Fair' meaning on the high side, giving Republic Wireless some buit-in operating revenue with every phone sold that they might otherwise have to seek financing for, so yes.
These (the CDMA Optimus currently) are sub $100 phones @ retail. Irregardless of the phones value, what the consumer gets for their $200 is a plan that will return that investment in just a few months when compared with any carrier offering. Plus a phone & carrier that they can walk away from anytime. | |
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vinnie97
Premium Member
2011-Dec-23 6:04 pm
Re: We'll See If the Company Can Make It Work"Irregardless?" Agh, pet peeve of mine (can't help it). | |
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to openbox9
said by openbox9:Yep. I don't see this venture lasting long. The company might be better off just limiting the service and charging its low price for the bargain hunters. If all they did was cut the lowest provider, say MetroPCS by 1/3 or half, they would still have a hit. I would gladly pay 30.00 a month for 500 minutes but unlimited text, data/web on a smart phone. Even the POS LG Optimus S they are selling is so/so but for the cost of service, acceptable. Yep, I got one. Wife is the "beta tester" and so far, the phone is ok, battery sucks. Call handoffs work great (no dropped calls). BUT, no use what-so-ever and battery dies in 18 hrs. Some people will say that's great for an android. Well, my Motorola Admiral (sprint) says they are wrong. 36hrs is it's norm even with use. I've had it almost 2 weeks and I've gotten 2 days with just texting. Worst was 24hrs and was watching Youtube, downloading apps, lots of background stuff going. So, 8-12hrs on any phone is shameful. | |
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to FFH5
said by FFH5:said by openbox9:Will this work or simply begin the demise of this effort? said by Republic Wireless :As part of that legal amendment, everyone who has purchased or purchases a phone during beta will be guaranteed the opportunity to enjoy unlimited service, without fear of cancellation, until the end of beta. We wont end beta until we either achieve economic sustainability or become convinced that doing so is impossible. Emphasis mine. Sure sounds like they are well prepared to abandon unlimited fairly quickly if all they draw as customers are the people who will heavily use cell data services. Well, considering the phone they offered with the plan, I doubt many of us will cause a data issue anytime soon. We will be spending more time charging our phones then downloading or teathering. Why not have 2 levels of service. 20.00 talk/text/web minutes with 1 gb data. 25.00 or 30.00 talk/text/data unlimited. Maybe they should just do us all a favor and buy Sprint and kill off anything they don't need. | |
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| SeleniaGentoo Convert Premium Member join:2006-09-22 Fort Smith, AR |
to openbox9
said by openbox9:Will this work or simply begin the demise of this effort? said by Republic Wireless :As part of that legal amendment, everyone who has purchased or purchases a phone during beta will be guaranteed the opportunity to enjoy unlimited service, without fear of cancellation, until the end of beta. We wont end beta until we either achieve economic sustainability or become convinced that doing so is impossible. Emphasis mine. I think it is sustainable with a little thought. They put together an automated VOIP solution within Android that chooses whether to route over cell or wifi. Who says they can't automate scanning and connecting to wifi? Seems if they do that within the phone and scrap fair use clauses, they could be more profitable be attracting consumers that shun anything that isn't of the utmost simplicity. These are usually non-techie users that use less on average, anyways. | |
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| | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
openbox9
Premium Member
2011-Dec-27 9:16 am
Re: We'll See If the Company Can Make It Worksaid by Selenia:Who says they can't automate scanning and connecting to wifi? That's great in your home, but more and more "open" APs require some form of registration and/or acknowledgment for AUP/ToS. WiFi isn't ubiquitous and therefore I believe that "trusting" users to manage network use will be a downfall of this strategy. | |
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| | | SeleniaGentoo Convert Premium Member join:2006-09-22 Fort Smith, AR |
Selenia
Premium Member
2011-Dec-27 9:49 am
Re: We'll See If the Company Can Make It WorkPart of this automation could be a connection test upon placing a call, that causes it to fall back if it fails. Even with this in place, it should still raise wifi use because it'll be on already and authenticated once the person tries to browse the web. But to trust a laymen to turn wifi on and off at different locations without such a fair use clause? That idea is dead at the gate. You're a computer guy and they have programmers. You should know it's not impossible to work around minor hitches like that, but it is impossible to be able to trust regular users to manage their own network use without some terms restricting them. | |
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I hope they know what they're doingI have a feeling their truly unlimited service won't last long. They are a Sprint MVNO and don't own any towers. | |
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| mix join:2002-03-19 Romeo, MI |
mix
Member
2011-Dec-23 10:11 am
Re: I hope they know what they're doingWon't this just end up like Virgin Mobile, a change of terms and an increase in prices, but quicker? | |
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| openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
to fifty nine
said by fifty nine:They are a Sprint MVNO and don't own any towers. It is challenging to be disruptive in a market in which you don't own any infrastructure. Add to that the infrastructure is owned/managed by a company that is facing significant financial headwinds and the future doesn't appear too bright. | |
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Re: I hope they know what they're doingThis isn't disruptive, this is just plain STUPID.
Unlimited for such a low price is just begging for abuse. | |
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| | | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144
1 recommendation |
openbox9
Premium Member
2011-Dec-23 12:04 pm
Re: I hope they know what they're doingI agree. That was part of my point | |
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to fifty nine
Its funny how we bitch when a service is priced too high and capped really low and then we bitch with something is priced really low and unlimited. It's a no win situation when it comes to critics. | |
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IanR join:2001-03-22 Fort Mill, SC |
IanR
Member
2011-Dec-23 11:32 am
Terms were fine why change?500 minutes cellular and vast amounts of WiFi sounded a good deal to me. So I don't see their rationale for changing it. Does this also mean data services are "unlimited" as well? | |
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more phones....Be awesome if I could bring my Evo..... | |
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JasonOD
Anon
2011-Dec-23 12:04 pm
Re: more phones....Don't hold your breath for any 4G (WiMax) mobiles. This is a 3G network exclusive deal, and as somebody said above, Sprint's 3G network is falling in value. | |
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elray join:2000-12-16 Santa Monica, CA |
elray
Member
2011-Dec-23 11:51 am
That didn't take long!I've never read a more geeked-up convoluted "explanation" of a fair-use policy, in my lifetime. Since when should customers require a JD and a degree in math to understand their billing?
Kudos to them for owning up to it quickly.
They're still going to fail, unless they fix the WiFi calling, the hand-off, offer a $50 phone, and cross their fingers that clients are accepting of Sprint PCS' voice quality and coverage. And probably at that point, they'll realize it doesn't pencil out.
I'd stick with MetroPCS @ $20/500 minutes monthly, or Page Plus' $80/2000 minute (1 year) plans. | |
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gnon1s1002
Anon
2011-Dec-23 12:56 pm
Re: That didn't take long!they don't this is typical Karl wording so you click on the page -- they have an online tool that does it for you, easy, graphical, easy --- no degree needed, unless you want to get page hits to a over sensationalized news article. | |
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| | BiggA Premium Member join:2005-11-23 Central CT |
BiggA
Premium Member
2011-Dec-24 10:17 am
Re: That didn't take long!Yup. It was 1200 units, minutes count as one, 6 texts count as one, 500kb counts as one, not too hard to understand, except apparently for Karl. | |
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| | | BiggA Premium Member join:2005-11-23 Central CT |
BiggA
Premium Member
2011-Dec-27 5:07 pm
Re: That didn't take long!They just did a bad job explaining it. I explained it 100% in a sentence. | |
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These MVNO Deals...never seem to pan out very well over the long term. I can just hear VZW laughing right now, especially if these guy went and approached them for a MVNO deal with these kinds of terms.
Sprint always seems to go out of it's way to find piles of quicksand to jump into feet-first. Nextel, ClearWire, LightSquared, and now this. Teriffic deal even under the "Fair Use" terms, but the demographic which is most likely to be attracted to this scares me, Republic will be lucky if they can consistently get the $20/month.
And cellular limits or no limits, unless this wi-fi/cellular handoff can be completely phone-based, i.e. WiFi ONLY when in wi-fi hotspot, cellular only when not, seamlessly without user intervention, the economics will fail and this company will fail to turn a profit.
Hey, i hope it works, if it does, it will be a gamechanger for the wireless industry. | |
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b10010011Whats a Posting tag? join:2004-09-07 united state |
Why can't they make the offloading automatic?If there is an open access point have it use it automatically and seamlessly switch from WiFi to cellular.
Allow users to enter WEP/WPA keys for WiFi that needs it and prioritization for encrypted access points. | |
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their FUP was reasonable and made total sense == huge fail!Wow! Just further proof that if you want to offer FUP that makes total sense and is just about as clear as it gets, your business model will be a total fail with the general population! Nice try, Republic! ;-) | |
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| MSaukMSauk Premium Member join:2002-01-17 Sandy, UT |
MSauk
Premium Member
2011-Dec-23 4:37 pm
Re: their FUP was reasonable and made total sense == huge fail!Really sad to see so many people talking shit to a company that is trying to provide cheap cell phone service.
I for one applaud them for not trying to nickle and dime every damn person out there.
Right now I am stuck in a damn contract till my life is over it seems. If I wasn't, I would have done this in a heart beat.
20 bucks compared to 200, yeah give me the 20 dollar plan. | |
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dvd536as Mr. Pink as they come Premium Member join:2001-04-27 Phoenix, AZ |
dvd536
Premium Member
2011-Dec-23 3:04 pm
@homeAnyone? | |
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tmh @comcastbusiness.net |
tmh
Anon
2011-Dec-23 3:10 pm
So, when can I sign up?Says its in beta now. | |
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| 88615298 (banned) join:2004-07-28 West Tenness |
88615298 (banned)
Member
2011-Dec-24 11:39 am
Re: So, when can I sign up?limited service area anyways. | |
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Well worth the moneyThe service works really well. It will be even better when they release the update to switch from wifi to cell in a call. well worth $19.00 | |
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Money back guarantee"In the event that we end beta with a decision to abandon or change our unlimited offering, well give you the option of canceling for a full refund for your device at that time." Even if you must have continuous service to qualify for an eventual refund, this seems like a very good deal -- too good to be true? It seems a bit similar to Boost Mobile or Virgin Mobile except cheaper because they expect much of the usage to be via WiFi. When I bought an Optimus phone with Virgin Mobile almost a year ago, the price was $25 per month. A few months later they increased the price to $35 per month, although current customers could keep the $25 per month plan. I would expect the same to happen with Republic, but as I read it, a price increase would trigger eligibility for a full refund of the initial purchase price if the customer did not want to pay the increased monthly charge. | |
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BiggA Premium Member join:2005-11-23 Central CT |
BiggA
Premium Member
2011-Dec-24 10:18 am
Makes no senseThey need the limits to encourage people to use wifi, which is the whole point of this service. Otherwise, they are basically selling unlimited Sprint with unlimited voice/text on Verizon for $19/mo. That doesn't make any sense. | |
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