Republic Wireless Tries to Clear up Calling, Texting, and Data Limit Confusion [UPDATE]
Launching earlier in the week, Republic Wireless made a lot of waves by offering unlimited calls, text, and data for only $19 a month. The “Hybrid-Calling” service runs off of both WiFi and Sprint’s wireless network, but encourages customers to lean mostly on WiFi whenever possible. This left people wondering exactly how much mobile network use is too much? Republic’s website currently has an example listed that led to a bit of confusion. The example stated “even assuming 0% WiFi usage, for example, you could consume 550 minutes, send 150 texts, and download 300 megabytes of data without crossing the community’s fair use threshold.”
Many have misunderstood this example and have taken it as the service’s mobile network cap. Recently Republic Wireless took to their Facebook account to clear things up.
People of the republic, we’d just like to clarify that 550 minutes, 150 texts, and 300 MB of data over 3G is just an example, not a limit. The more you offload to Wi-Fi, the more you can use. It’s truly unlimited. We do have fair use guidelines and we encourage you to use Wi-Fi whenever possible.
It appears that Republic Wireless is operating on a give to get policy, but it would definitely be nice to see some concrete numbers. We’re willing to bet that if the service catches on and subscribers begin to use less WiFi and more mobile, we’ll eventually get a solid answer. Hopefully this will happen before the additional network use affects actual Sprint customers.
Update: The good folks from Republic Wireless hit us with a tweet adding further clarification to their policy.
60% WiFi usage is what we encourage. Obvious abusers will be given multiple warnings before being let go.
via: Republic Wireless (Twitter)
Source: Republic Wireless (Facebook)
I think this service is a great idea, especially for people who want a smartphone and are always on a wifi connection.
Well this is going to be an absolute disaster. I’ll keep my sprint contract.
Basically as long as as you mostly keep to the fair usage constraints, then having occasional times when going off-the-beaten-path for usage, you are fine, unless you repeatedly keep doing so.
So it doesnt matter how much network data you use as long as 60% of your total usage is on wifi? Why not set up the phone to stream hi quality video whenever possible on your home wifi network?
I think they’ll look at phone calls as well.