Republic Wireless

[SpaghettiMonster]

Has anyone used this smart phone plan? www.republicwireless.com. It looks great to me, but I can't find anyone I know who has used it.

[nmerket]

I've been using them since December and quite like it. We upgraded from dumbphones with no text/data plan for the same price.

Pros:

• You can't beat the price (unless, of course, you hack something together like MMM).
• It's a fully functional smart phone where I don't have to worry about my minutes/text/data usage.

Cons

• You can't send/receive MMS messages. That's picture texts and shortcode (any phone number less than 7 digits) texts. Generally I just email pictures because the phone has the internet on it
• The phone is a low end smartphone. I'm thinking of rooting it to get at some of the storage space on the sd card so I can have more than just a handful of apps. I hear they're getting some better phones some time this summer.
• Calls you start on wifi will drop if you leave the wifi zone. They also get spotty if you have a slowish internet connection and your spouse starts watching something on hulu.

All in all the caveats don't outweigh the benefits of having a smartphone for the same price as a crippled dumbphone. If you're a recovering iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy III user, though, you might not be happy with it. If you decide to go through with it, make sure to use my referral link and we can both get $19 off our bill.
http://referrals.republicwireless.com/a/clk/3Hw2Fc

[nmerket]

Oh yeah, and they're supposedly working on the MMS issue and just cleared a major legal hurdle to making it happen. It's been a long requested feature, but there doesn't seem to be any date set on that one.

[huadpe]

Personally, for a non-hacked solution I'm a big fan of Ting.  They are a little higher on the monthly cost than Republic, but have a wide selection of phones (instead of only one) and you can get your phone for much cheaper than on Republic.  Also, they are the only MVNO I've found that doesn't brick your phone when you cross into another country (in fact their Canada roaming rates are the best I've seen).

Republic also charges $250 for a pretty basic android phone.  If you want a basic android phone, you can get one for $70 (Kyocera Milano) on Ting.  And since they're both cheap monthly, it takes a long time to make up that ground.

My main reason for going with Ting over Republic (besides I travel to Canada often) was the fact that Ting doesn't require modding the phone by the carrier.  This is a much simpler and more stable business model for Ting, since they can basically offer any phone you'd want, (and that the mfg will sell them), whereas Republic is only ever going to offer one or two phones, which won't ever be the latest and greatest.

https://zfe8hfk8g.ting.com/  There's a referral link if you're gonna go that way :)

[LizzyBee]

Personally, for a non-hacked solution I'm a big fan of Ting.  They are a little higher on the monthly cost than Republic, but have a wide selection of phones (instead of only one) and you can get your phone for much cheaper than on Republic.  Also, they are the only MVNO I've found that doesn't brick your phone when you cross into another country (in fact their Canada roaming rates are the best I've seen).

Republic also charges $250 for a pretty basic android phone.  If you want a basic android phone, you can get one for $70 (Kyocera Milano) on Ting.  And since they're both cheap monthly, it takes a long time to make up that ground.

My main reason for going with Ting over Republic (besides I travel to Canada often) was the fact that Ting doesn't require modding the phone by the carrier.  This is a much simpler and more stable business model for Ting, since they can basically offer any phone you'd want, (and that the mfg will sell them), whereas Republic is only ever going to offer one or two phones, which won't ever be the latest and greatest.

https://zfe8hfk8g.ting.com/  There's a referral link if you're gonna go that way :)

I've looked into Ting and it just doesn't seem to be anywhere near the cost of Republic Wireless. It's certainly cheaper than Sprint, but I'd really have to limit calling and texting to get my costs down. Since my entire family lives out of state, I just don't want to constantly be worried about how many minutes or texts I'm using. I'd totally go with Republic Wireless, but I use my cell phone for work and it seems really bothersome and somewhat unprofessional to have a spotty connection and dropped calls. I have 2 months to decide which route I will go and many people on these forums love Ting. Maybe I will figure out a way to limit my texting and phone calls and go with Ting, or wait and see if Republic Wireless makes some of the improvements it says it will make.

Question for both Ting and Republic Wireless users: Do they add fees on top of their basic monthly costs?

[icefr]

@RebeccaE I'm with Ting as well. I mostly switched to them because I had a Sprint phone that I could port over for free. Chopping $60 off my monthly bill with no costs associated? That's a slam dunk! I also liked them because of cheap roaming in Canada, free texting while in Canada, yeah.

There are some fees on top of the plan, but not nearly as much as I was paying with Sprint (that was almost $15 pr month, crazy!!).

I find that I never go over 1,000 text messages and the difference between 100 and 1,000 is $2 ($3 to $5), which isn't worth worrying over. The minutes are more of a concern though. Per I.P. Daley's guide, I decided to give VOIPo a try for 25 months for my calls at home and to Canada. That seems to be working because my Ting minutes are 86 so far this month with two days to go and about 40 of those were calling family before I got the VOIPo set up. I also only use data when traveling or bussing around a lot, at most 100 MB, so max $3/month.

I made a spreadsheet of the data from my almost two years of contract cell phone usage to look at how much things would cost on Ting. On a super talkative month with no VOIPo, my bill would be ~$40 and on a cheap month, down to $12. I like that it can change based on the month's usage.

My last bill looked like this:

Usage (Apr 01 - Apr 30)

These adjustments are based on your usage for the last month including any new devices you've added.

Minutes     You used 279 minutes more than you paid for, so we added an adjustment     $9.00
Messages     You used 365 messages more than you paid for, so we added an adjustment     $5.00
Megabytes     You used 0 megabytes details     $0.00

Usage Total: $14.00
Plan (Apr 30 - May 30)

These are the plan charges you selected for the coming month.

Active Device    1   details    $6.00
Plan Total: $6.00

Taxes & Regulatory Fees

Federal, state and local taxes and regulatory fees we are required to collect details

Taxes and Regulatory Fees Total:    $5.60
Usage:    $14.00
Plans:    $6.00
Taxes and Regulatory Fees:    $5.60
Total:    $25.60

[nmerket]

@RebeccaE

Monthly fees for Republic Wireless came to $3.23 for me last month per phone on top of the $19. So for our two phones it runs $44.46/month. I think it varies a little by state, so your mileage may vary.

Speaking to the high price for the phone ($249), they now have a deal where you can get the phone for $99 and pay $29/month for the service. There's no contract either way. Whether it's worth it depends on how soon you plan on replacing your phone.

[Daley]

@RebeccaE

Monthly fees for Republic Wireless came to $3.23 for me last month per phone on top of the $19. So for our two phones it runs $44.46/month. I think it varies a little by state, so your mileage may vary.

Speaking to the high price for the phone ($249), they now have a deal where you can get the phone for $99 and pay $29/month for the service. There's no contract either way. Whether it's worth it depends on how soon you plan on replacing your phone.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/this-is-only-beginner-level-badass-but/

Research, people. Also, if you're going to spend $30+ on "unlimited" phone service, just use GoSmart. An extra $5 a month at that point is well worth not suffering the caveats of Republic's service and being able to pick what phone you want/need.

[eil]

My monthly Ting bill has been < $15 every month for the last year I've been a customer. (Except in the beginning when I bought the phone.)

This is mostly because I almost never use the carrier's network for anything, though.

1. Data: I'm almost always in range of free wifi at home, work, or somewhere else. I have cell data turned off on my phone so my bandwidth isn't wasted by Facebook (et al) when I'm out of the house.
2. Text: I have direct text messaging to my phone turned off, and use the free Google Voice app for texting.
3. Voice: I use Google Voice for making calls to friends and family. I have a custom setup for this that didn't cost me anything, but everyone else can either use a bluetooth setup on their computer to make calls through Google Voice or buy one of those Obi Hai devices.

So basically the only thing I ever pay for is when I need to turn on wireless Data on my phone to look something up or use Google Maps for navigation, or when somebody calls me. Both of these are rare enough that I've never gone beyond the "small" buckets for data and voice.

[Justin234]

I. P. Daley and others,

I hope this is not a highjack of the thread,  but I am looking at Republic Wireless versus Ting and I'm trying to figure out what makes sense. I have never owned a smartphone but find that I am needing to check my email from spots without wifi connection for work - that is the main thing I need a smart phone for, although I'm sure I'll find many other reasons to use it. I make a lot of phone calls for work but am generally around a wifi signal. Occasionally I am not, of course.

What I can't figure out is how many MG of Ting I'd need per month. Since I don't have smart phone experience it is hard to know how much data I'll need.

For what it is worth, I currently have the H2O $25 text/talk plan (2.5 cents per text or per minute) and I use about $15 per month of that (no idea how much of that is talk and how much is text though).

Could I get by for sure on 500 MB on ting, and then 0 minutes and 0 texts? Is that what you are getting at, I.P? That comes out to $19 plus surcharges. If I bump the data up to 1000 MB it goes to $30 plus surcharges. It feels weird to have absolutely no minute plan at all...

I also feel a bit overwhelmed by the variety of phones on Ting. I really don't care in the end, but faced with the decision I feel I have to investigate them closely. Is the Republic Wireless phone really equivalent to the $100 ones offered on Ting? (the Kyocera Rise is $163; the next cheapest is the Kyocera Milano)

[madage]

Why limit yourself to just Republic Wireless or Ting? It sounds like already have a GSM phone on H2O, so why don't you save some capital and explore the world of T-Mobile MVNO's with your existing phone? If you're only using $15 of a $25 plan, pay-as-you-go rates will probably save you money. For example, PTel's PAYGO $0.04/min, $0.02/txt, $0.10/MB would probably be cheaper per month for you than Republic (not to mention saving you $250 on a phone), cheaper than what you have right now and less annoying than dealing with the limitations of Republic Wireless. If T-Mobile coverage isn't acceptable in your area, check out Airvoice instead, which uses AT&T's network.

Keep researching. The Superguide is a fantastic resource, if you haven't read it.

Regarding your actual question on data usage, if you're only occasionally checking email and not downloading multi-megabyte files, streaming music or video, etc - you're probably looking at a few tens of megabytes per month (ie less than 50). Oh, and you don't need a fancypants touchscreen smartphone to check email. I.P. Daley highly recommends Symbian QWERTY-style phones from Nokia. I have a comparable model and can confirm it does just great for occasional email checking when out and about.

[LizzyBee]

I find that I never go over 1,000 text messages and the difference between 100 and 1,000 is $2 ($3 to $5), which isn't worth worrying over. The minutes are more of a concern though. Per I.P. Daley's guide, I decided to give VOIPo a try for 25 months for my calls at home and to Canada. That seems to be working because my Ting minutes are 86 so far this month with two days to go and about 40 of those were calling family before I got the VOIPo set up. I also only use data when traveling or bussing around a lot, at most 100 MB, so max $3/month.

Thank you (and others) for taking time to explain how you get your Ting bill so low. With Ting, my monthly bill always seemed like it would be around $40 because, based on my average usage for the last year, I would need to pay for about 1,000 minutes per month. I've never heard of or used VOIPo or set up Google Voice so those are definitely things I will want to look into to lower my monthly costs.

[jprince7827]

I switched from my iPhone Verizon plan(100$ a month) to Republic(20$ a month.) The price change is great, and I'm going to stick with Republic because of it - that and I hate giant companies like Verizon/Comcast/Sprint/etc.

However, that being said, the phone change is not so great.

Here are my gripes with it:

1. No storage. For some reason, even though it has a built in SD card, it never installs apps on it. Instead it tries to use the main HDD, which is almost full, so it's constantly giving me storage space warnings, and no apps can ever update any more. The other day, to install Uber, I had to uninstall Mint. I can't have both at the same time. Edit: I only have six apps installed on the phone besides the Google ones that came with it. Thought that would shed some perspective.

2. Texting is garbage. On my old phone, long texts would show up as one text message that was very long. On this one, it is broken up into many texts, which often arrive at different times, in different orders, taking up to a few minutes to arrive.

3. No picture texts. Well, you all know they are working on this.

4. Terrible battery life outside of WiFi. If you goto the Airport, or some other place where it's not your work/home wifi that you always use, you'll notice your phone dies within a few hours. I think they set it up this way so you can't "Go roaming around the back woods of Wyoming watching Netflix"(paraphrased ad from the Republic Website). They say you can if you want, but they built this in I think to make sure you can't do it for very long.

5. Processing power is crap. When I go running, I use Runkeeper + Pandora. However, many times, Pandora will crash or never even start, so I have to keep an eye on it, and sometimes I can start one of the apps, but not the other. I have to restart the phone to run RK + Pandora together. Sometimes, RK will freeze and then it will "brick" the phone, forcing me to do a restart. The rest of my family use this same combo on different Android/iPhones and it works fine, so I know it's related to this phone's tiny memory and processing capability. Also I suspect that using Sprint's network as a third party carrier must mean some sort of bandwidth limiting happens.

Anyway, generally, this phone really sucks. It's pretty much as dumb as a smartphone can get while still being considered "smart." I wouldn't recommend buying it if you are a power user, but luckily, I really am not such a power user.

I gladly trade the 100$ over the 20$, or even 50$ for newer plans on Verizon, just to say a big FU to Verizon and the other big companies. I'll take my 30$-70$ savings per month and invest it and just deal with the shitty phone. Republic is a great company and I have faith they'll eventually get it down, or release a better phone, or something.

[footenote]

We have been using Republic and are happy with it. We have also observed all of jprice's drawbacks and find the tradeoffs acceptable.

[NinetyFour]

I recently made the switch from Verizon to Ting.  Under Verizon, I got 450 minutes and 1000 texts and no data (I had it disabled) for $50 per month.  (My bill would have been higher than that, but through my work, I got an 18% discount.)  I was not able to bring my old phone to Ting, so I bought a refurbished LG Optimus S phone from Ting for $68 + $7 tax.  I have not yet received my first Ting bill, but it looks like I will be in the "small" bucket for texts and the "large" bucket for minutes.  So my bill will be $6 (for one device) plus $18 for minutes plus $3 for texts.  I will not be using data. With fees, I'm guessing it will be about $30 for the month.  Not dirt cheap, but I love beating Verizon.  If you go with Ting, here is my referral :)  https://zl2abm1if34.ting.com/

[Daley]

I gladly trade the 100$ over the 20$, or even 50$ for newer plans on Verizon, just to say a big FU to Verizon and the other big companies. I'll take my 30$-70$ savings per month and invest it and just deal with the shitty phone. Republic is a great company and I have faith they'll eventually get it down, or release a better phone, or something.

We have been using Republic and are happy with it. We have also observed all of jprice's drawbacks and find the tradeoffs acceptable.

This is what kills me. This logic right here. "It's terrible, but I'm only paying $20-30 and not to the big four, so who cares!" That's not sound logic, that's denial trying to justify a bad decision that cost a lot of money.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Republic service is fundamentally flawed in its execution, so no matter how good the company supposedly is, no matter how much technology is thrown at it, it'll still be broken. VoIP is a mature technology. Android smartphones are a mature platform. Wireless data over W-CDMA is a mature delivery channel. Yet somehow, combining these three mature technologies together results in a terrible service. Could it be that VoIP over wireless cellular data (especially Sprint) is just not a great idea? Do you really think throwing more money and more expensive handsets at the situation is really going to fix all its fundamental shortcomings?

It's only a fantastic sounding deal when you measure it against the major mobile network operators and full-price postpaid plans. It's the same way Ooma sounds like a great deal for people coming off of traditional landline telephone service or Vonage. It seems cheap, but when compared to the competition, it really isn't. Most Republic users have no idea how easy it is to get good, traditional mobile services without these tradeoffs and hassles that meet their actual calling needs for around the same price or less with other MVNOs where they can actually pick a handset that genuinely and properly fits their needs, but the sweet sweet siren song of UNLIMITED* always short-circuits people's rational minds leading to irrational shopping because people are frequently too lazy to work out what sort of service they actually need.

* The term unlimited is never actually unlimited. The reality is, it's very limited. Sprint's data services with MVNOs has a price, and $20 for domestic VoIP service (figure a cost of around $5 to provide without turning a profit - less given who's involved) layered onto that data service realistically only gets you around 500MB of data where the company can still justify keeping the lights on. You want realistic pricing for an end-user level pre-configured VoIP over mobile wireless provider? Look into TextNow. It's still a terrible implementation and will never be as good as proper mobile phone service or VoIP service tied to a wired internet connection, but there you go.

One last thing: Republic is owned by Bandwidth.com, which is no VoIP industry lightweight itself. They may not be an 800lb. gorilla, but this is the outfit that supplies Google with the phone numbers for Google Voice. Take that for what it's worth, but a "big FU" to other big companies isn't the first thing that comes to my mind with potentially doing business with them.

[footenote]

I.P. - I just don't care about the stuff that doesn't work well on Republic. I'm not a perfectionist about this sector of my life. And I'm not trying to flip off major corporations.

I love your contributions to this forum and you may very well help others avoid frustrations with Republic. Peace out.

[Daley]

I.P. - I just don't care about the stuff that doesn't work well on Republic. I'm not a perfectionist about this sector of my life. And I'm not trying to flip off major corporations.

Fair enough, but let me present this as a deliberately challenged response:

You and other Republic customers have deemed it necessary enough to have mobile phone service in your life to the tune of at least $230-350 plus taxes per year, plus another $100-250 up front for a new mobile phone. These are not insignificant amounts of money. Republic's costs are more expensive than more traditional home VoIP solutions, and an inferior product per dollar spent as a wireless provider. If the trade-offs aren't actually a problem, why bring them up in the first place? You're paying money for a service, so you should care about the quality of service you're provided. If you still don't care, why spend the money in the first place?

So, let me reiterate, "If reliable mobile phone service isn't an important enough need in your daily life to warrant holding your provider accountable for actually providing the service you're paying for, do you actually need it?"

Don't let your indifference lead to unnecessary waste in your budget and your life.

I love your contributions to this forum and you may very well help others avoid frustrations with Republic. Peace out.

That's why I keep repeating myself and deliberately challenging posts like this... I'm trying to help others avoid the frustrations of terrible low-cost communications services from lousy providers, including their current customers.

May peace be upon you as well.

[greenfish]

I'm a Republic user who ran into some of these same problems when I first got my Defy XT, but there are fixes for several of them (sadly they say the texting issues won't be fixed until their new phone launches in November- the old "dumb phone" I replaced when I broke it could do mms & picture texts)

1. No storage. For some reason, even though it has a built in SD card, it never installs apps on it. Instead it tries to use the main HDD, which is almost full, so it's constantly giving me storage space warnings, and no apps can ever update any more. The other day, to install Uber, I had to uninstall Mint. I can't have both at the same time. Edit: I only have six apps installed on the phone besides the Google ones that came with it. Thought that would shed some perspective.

There's an easy fix for this that lets you move most apps to the sd card without rooting the phone. I found it in the republic community here: https://community.republicwireless.com/people/carlh/blog/2013/06/28/defy-xt-how-to-increase-space-for-apps-and-avoid-the-low-memory-warning and it worked great for me to fix this problem

4. Terrible battery life outside of WiFi. If you goto the Airport, or some other place where it's not your work/home wifi that you always use, you'll notice your phone dies within a few hours. I think they set it up this way so you can't "Go roaming around the back woods of Wyoming watching Netflix"(paraphrased ad from the Republic Website). They say you can if you want, but they built this in I think to make sure you can't do it for very long.

This happens because your phone is searching for a WIFI signal and that drains your battery, just turn WIFI off (using the widget or under settings) when you know you'll be out of WIFI range all day and you'll get much better battery life. (You should also turn off GPS and bluetooth when you aren't using them.)

5. Processing power is crap. When I go running, I use Runkeeper + Pandora. However, many times, Pandora will crash or never even start, so I have to keep an eye on it, and sometimes I can start one of the apps, but not the other. I have to restart the phone to run RK + Pandora together. Sometimes, RK will freeze and then it will "brick" the phone, forcing me to do a restart. The rest of my family use this same combo on different Android/iPhones and it works fine, so I know it's related to this phone's tiny memory and processing capability. Also I suspect that using Sprint's network as a third party carrier must mean some sort of bandwidth limiting happens.

My Defy XT does Runtastic and Pandora together with no problems, if freeing up some internal memory doesn't stop RK from crashing, you might try switching run apps.

Anyway, generally, this phone really sucks. It's pretty much as dumb as a smartphone can get while still being considered "smart." I wouldn't recommend buying it if you are a power user, but luckily, I really am not such a power user.

Hopefully these tips help, but if even with these fixes, you still think the Defy XT is a shitty phone, you can upgrade to the Moto X in November http://republicwireless.com/moto-x-faqs#improvements

It'll cost ~$200 after rebate for the new phone, but if you're on the $29/mo plan now like I am, the new unlimited 3g plan will be cheaper.

[horsepoor]

I've had Republic's MotoX for about 10 days now, and it is an awesome phone! I already had an HTC Rezound, so I'm somewhat spoiled on smart phones, and the MotoX is a definite upgrade. I will cop to being lazy as far as no doing extensive research to determine the exact best value.  I dumped Verizon, which was usually around $70 per month for the basic 450 minute talk plan plus unlimited data and pay-per-text, and that included a 15% discount through my employer.  The Republic 3G service has been totally fine for me, and it's nice to have the option to upgrade to the 4G service for short time periods.  I may try this while I'm on a one-week trip next month.

The unlimited* wifi talk is great for me since I am allowed to work from home periodically, but would find myself going in to the office simply because I didn't want to use my minutes for 1-2 hour conference calls.  Now using my personal cell for long work calls on my home wifi will not be an issue - just saved some clown car driving!