Input on T-Mobile please

[Greg]

On T-mobile aboutca year now. Saving big over Sprint. Local coverage fine. Open road coverage in
flyover country really poor.

Going to give Republic Wireless a try.

Interesting. I read about Republic some time ago and dismissed it at the time. Maybe I was premature.

How much time do you spend with wifi access? This is really a VoIP service with cellular as a backup (Sprint MVNO), and they don't expect you to use the cellular much.

[blackeagle603]

Yeah, they are set up to emphasize Wi-Fi use and default to it whenever possible. If I recollect they buy & resell bandwidth from Sprint and Verizon so they have an impressive coverage map.

I'm planning to get a used Republic phone on E-bay and convert one of our mobile lines to them and give them a test run. There's no contract so that's no too much skin in the game for an eval.


WiFi Only
$5 PER MONTH
WiFi
UNLIMITED TALK / TEXT / DATA
over WiFi.

The Republic Plan
$10 PER MONTH
WiFi and Cell
UNLIMITED TALK / TEXT
over WiFi + Cell.
UNLIMITED DATA
over WiFi.


Republic + 3G
$25 PER MONTH
WiFi and 3g
UNLIMITED TALK / TEXT
over WiFi + Cell.
UNLIMITED DATA
over WiFi + On-Network 3G.*

Republic + 4G
$40 PER MONTH
WiFi and 4g
UNLIMITED TALK/TEXT
over WiFi + Cell.
UNLIMITED DATA
over WiFi + On-Network 4G.*

[Weetabix]

My daughter has the Republic + 3G. If my company didn't pay for my service, I'd have that, too. The small catch is that they only had two phones to choose from last time I looked. Both Motorolas, so I'm OK with that.

Here's the review that sold me: Republic Wireless becomes 50% More Frugal with the Moto G: A Review

The daughter is frugal and not blown by the winds of fad.

My son, who is torn between frugality and fashion, originally had service with Virgin Mobile on a Samsung Galaxy 3 ($35/mo IIRC0, but dissatisfaction with the service led him to Verizon with a Samsung Galaxy 5. I haven't asked him about his new monthly burden.

[Greg]

Yeah, they are set up to emphasize Wi-Fi use and default to it whenever possible. If I recollect they buy & resell bandwidth from Sprint and Verizon so they have an impressive coverage map.

Ah if they used Sprint and Verizon for cellular service that would be much more appealing. Sprint is a real dog anywhere near where I am.

I'm planning to get a used Republic phone on E-bay and convert one of our mobile lines to them and give them a test run. There's no contract so that's no too much skin in the game for an eval.

WiFi Only

The Republic Plan

Republic + 3G

Republic + 4G

<plan info snipped, but it's a good comprehensive range of plans>

The real problem I had with them is that they provide the VOIP aspect, but it's up to you to provide the wifi. Basically you get a discount for providing, somehow it's up to you to find a way, their backhaul. The only place I go that I enjoy free wifi right now is my apartment. So I'd be pretty dependent on their cellular backup, which they discourage you from using.

ISTR they have policies where if you use what they deem as too much cellular service (airtime, messaging, data) they will send you a nastygram and put you on their shit list. If you use what they deem to be an abusive amount of cellular service they will cancel you. I recall reading what those estimated limits were once, and they seemed (IIRC) to be not very high. I wonder if I remember correctly, or if that has changed.

If you spend a lot of time in places with free wifi access, that will be much less of a concern.

[NVGdude]

Just switched to T-mobile last weekend.

So far service is great anywhere in Phoenix metro. Much cheaper than Verizon. Sprint has butkis for service out here.

My feelings for AT&T are about the same as Firestone (sideways with a chainsaw eh?) That left T-mobile and Verizon.

Verizon has a reputation for the best service, but you pay more for that. With T-mobile I don't have a long term contract, so if it sucks I can just switch anytime I like. Thus no real downside to trying T-mobile and if it doesn't work out you can always switch to someone else.

[Greg]

Just so everyone is aware, T-Mobile has a very attractive data-centric prepaid plan. It's $30/month and gives 100 voice minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited data (5GB at 4G, as in LTE, speed after that capped to 2G speed). I have this plan. I also have Google Voice.

You can do free unlimited (domestic) voice calling with Google Voice that only uses data, not cellular voice minutes. Though that only works well with a stable, high bandwidth low latency data connection, in empirical testing. But WiFi qualifies. Using Google.Voice calling over cellular data is hit or miss.

[Precision]

We are out on our tour of the country and just got republic before we left. Dawn has the 4G plan, I have the 3G plan. WiFi use works fine on the road sprint backbone is fine too. No more dropped calls then we had prior. I have a the moto g not bad. She has been the x and likes it. Saving us 50%.

[HTRN]

Just so everyone is aware, T-Mobile has a very attractive data-centric prepaid plan. It's $30/month and gives 100 voice minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited data (5GB at 4G, as in LTE, speed after that capped to 2G speed). I have this plan. I also have Google Voice.

I'd jump on that in heartbeat, but the voice minutes is too low. If they offered the option to up it to say, 300 or 400 minutes for another 10 bucks, it would be perfect.