I've just got a single question for Wtjbatman:
How is Republic Wireless' $300 phone and $10/month VoIP service such a great deal, when you cannot resell the phone or reactivate it after service is discontinued and cannot take it to another carrier for activation (effectively zero resale value), or even use it for its primary purpose of mobile phone use due to lousy Sprint reception in your area (which going to Sprint data for voice services is going to result in an even smaller usable reception footprint than what you already have)?
Hey Daley, how's it going. Thanks for the response, I'll break up your post and reply to your question and comments. First off, you're right it's not the type of phone you can resell to just anyone. Although technically they will be offering reactivation (
https://republicwireless.com/faqs), which will at least give me the option of reselling it to a RW customer. Limited? Yep. But I'm not commonly in the habit of reselling phones often or changing carriers. I've been with Sprint for the last nine or ten years, so if I find a carrier that works for me, I stay. I believe you're mistaken when it comes to the voice services, as RW says you roam domestically wherever there is a Sprint partner. Which is what I've been doing for the last 9 months with my Sprint service while at work. So, effectively, I am retaining my roaming voice/text services while
losing roaming data, which is so slow that it is effectively worthless. When out of Sprint coverage (such as when I'm at work), I have learned to rely on WiFi for any data needs.
Your logic is bat guano, dude. If you're going to use VoIP service, pay for VoIP service! You can get set up with equipment that you can use with other providers for far less, and if you're wanting to integrate that VoIP into a mobile phone package, you could switch to a GSM MVNO and likely get far better mobile reception on top of your VoIP usage needs and between the two not spend much more than you're proposing per month already, have less of an up-front investment, and have the freedom to take your business elsewhere on top of it all.
I don't think my logic is shit, really. I think it works
for me. I've noticed in your posts that you are not a fan of RW, and you have made that clear many times in other threads (and now in my own). That's your opinion, which you are entitled to, but I'm looking for a simple, effective,
cheap monthly plan that works for
me, and RW seems like it may in fact fit the bill.
If you don't actually need mobile phone service, you can effectively save 100% of your bill right now by just disconnecting your service entirely instead of committing to $300 plus $10/tax a month for a device that pretends to be a mobile phone.
That's actually not accurate at all Daley. It is entirely a mobile phone. Although the plan I've talked about ($10 a month) does
not do mobile data, it does mobile calls and text. And I can switch to a plan with mobile data at any time. The phone cost is actually cheap for such a capable phone, since RW subsidizes part of the cost, unlike the other VoIP services I have looked at. In addition, the GSM MVNO's I have looked at (like GSM Nation), show plans that are
triple the cost of the plan I'm looking at.
You have to understand, one of the reasons I am liking this RW deal is because of the $10 a month cost. Some of the plans you talk about are $30 or $40 a month. Yes, that is a good price compared to the $90-100 most people spend on their cell phone service. But even $30 or $40 a month is significantly more expensive than the $10 I would be paying with RW!
For me, it seems like a great deal. I have yet to be convinced otherwise. And I just had to share!
