A new carrier named Republic Wireless, a division of Bandwidth.com, is set to unveil their new network on November 8th. What do they have to offer that may catch your attention (and more importantly your hard-earned dollars)? How about unlimited voice, text, and data for only $19 a month? OK — we’ll give you a moment to pick your jaw up off the ground and recollect your thoughts. Still with us? Good. So, you’re probably wondering — how in God’s Green Earth is this even possible? That was my initial thought as well, but after reading about it, their plan actually makes a ton of sense, while you save a ton of cents — literally.
Here’s how it works. Whenever you place a call or send a text on Republic Wireless it will be routed over a WiFi network if there is one available. If you leave a WiFi network, or go to an area where no connections are available, your calls and texts will be delivered using a standard cell network. GigaOm is reporting that Republic Wireless will purchase minutes from Sprint in bulk and resell them to their customers, and that the carrier will offer unlimited 3G service with no data caps. You’re probably wondering right about now, “What type of phones can we expect to see with rates this cheap?†Well, according to RW, they will offer special Android phones with support for voice calling over Wi-Fi networks using technology similar to UMA, a feature in several of T-Mobile’s Android and BlackBerry devices.
What do you think, folks? This is considerably cheaper than what the majority of us are paying right now. In my personal opinion, I’d have to say the decision to make the switch from T-Mobile would depend mainly on the quality of devices this new carrier has to offer. Not to mention the fact that they only offer 3G. They’d have to step that up before I could even consider becoming a customer.
