Republic Wireless Reviews

Overview

Republic Wireless is a relatively new entrant to the mobile phone industry which operates as an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) using the Sprint Network. The company has set out to distinguish itself as a provider of low cost budget cell phone plans that are flexible with no contracts required.

Republic Wireless is able to offer much cheaper prices than most other mobile phone operators due to their unique “handover” technology. This handover technology which is encoded into their phones allows for call, texts, and data usage to be used primarily over any available Wi-fi networks and uses the Sprint network when wi-fi is not available. Since most people tend to use their cell phones in either their home or office where wi-fi is often available, the company saves money on cell network traffic which they pass the savings on to their customers.

Cell Phone Plans

The plans offered range from $5 to $40 and include the option to switch between the different plans at a pro-rated price up to two times a month. This flexible plan switching option can be done right from an in-phone app which makes the process quick and easy.

The types of plans are shown below:

Republic Wireless Phone Plans Comparison

While the $5 wi-fi plan is certainly cheap and interesting, the most popular plan seems to be the $25 unlimited everything plan. Compared to other cell phone carriers, Republic takes the cake when it comes to their unlimited talk, text, and data option which appears to be the cheapest unlimited cell phone plan on the market right now.

My Personal Review/Experience

After being screwed over by AT&T for years on end, paying upwards of $75 per month for 350 minutes/200 texts/unlimited data (grandfathered in), it made a lot of sense for me to save myself an extra $50 bucks a month for a plan that was even better than I already had.

The only concerns I had was switching from an iPhone to an Android based phone (Moto G) and if the call/data coverage would be as good on the Sprint Network than the AT&T network. So I took the plunge in April 2014 and made the switch to Republic. Below is my experience so far, after about four months of using the service, broken down by a simple Pros and Cons list.

Pros

  • If you are a frugal minded person, any of the Republic plans is a no brainer in my opinion, especially for an Unlimited everything plan. I ended signing up for the $25 plan and love that I have an extra $50 to re-allocate in my budget each month.

  • The Moto G that I bought to use with this service works great and have yet to have any problems with the phone or the Android OS system on it.

  • Not only are the plans cheap, but they also don’t lock you into any type of contract AND they still offer their phones at a discount compared to other carriers. For example, I bought the Moto G for $149 from Republic which is usually $200 to buy retail from the big carriers like Verizon and AT&T.

  • The customer service is top notch, their support team are right on top of any questions or concerns you might have, and even provide lots of online material to help you in your switch from both services and phones.

Cons

  • The phone options are limited to the Moto X and Moto G at the time of this writing and they have to be purchased from Republic since the handover tech needs to be installed on the phone before using it. Thus there is no option to bring your old phone with you. However, both the Moto X and Moto G are excellent phones offered at discounted prices, with a third cheaper phone to come by the end of 2014.

  • Ironically the one place that I get bad Sprint network reception is in my living room where I use the phone the most… but you know what, that doesn’t matter at all because the phone operates over my home wi-fi instead so it all works out. Admittedly, the Sprint network can be a bit more spotty depending on where you are in the country compared to AT&T or Verizon but I think the cheap price and ability to call over a wi-fi network is a nice compromise.

  • Republic Wireless is still a fairly new company and they’ve had some bugs to work out of their handover technology, but it does continues to improve. For example, I believe that there is still some issues with MMS messages not being able to be received from certain carriers due to interoperability issues.

Overall I am very happy with this service right now, it does the job and the Moto G I’m using is fantastic, so I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

More Republic Wireless Reviews

Below is a list of some more Republic Wireless reviews from other bloggers and technology journalists who I trust to give fair objective reviews of the service:

Video Reviews of Republic Wireless


If you have used the Republic Wireless service, please let us know what your experiences have been in the comments section below.

5 comments

  1. Hi, I’m the owner of a Moto X and use it with Republic Wireless. This is my typical day in terms of phone use:

    I’m on wi-fi most of the time and my calls and texts go over it, the only difference is the quality, which is actually better! Also, text messages get sent and received instantaneously even when there is a weak cell tower signal which is useful for me. It switches seamlessly to the cell signal if the wi-fi gets dropped or gets too weak so you don’t even notice the switch-over really.

    I think the best part is the overall cost of both the phone and the service together – it’s so cheap! Not to mention, there are no reliability issues, even though I thought there might be; I figure if the wi-fi portals were blocked that calls would not work as well, but it automatically detects that stuff and routes over the cell signals. It is all very seamless and a great technological leap for us frugally minded folks. And it ought to get even better once they release cheaper model phones!

  2. Just got my Moto X in December and think it’s a freaking sweet phone. It’s got many good reviews which was the tipping point for me trying Republic, which also has appealing plans.

    Ended up with the 25 dollar 3g data plan that seems to be working ok for me, not really any issues so far, so good. Thing is that I was tracking my data use and realized that I didn’t really use much, so why am I even paying for it when I could just use wi-fi? So I switched over to the $10 unlimited talk & text plan (no data except wifi) a few months ago and has worked out real nice – don’t even miss having a data plan on the cell network.

    I had been using an iPhone on T-Mobile before switching and do not notice much difference in the cell coverage in my town. If you use the wi-fi in a smart way by white-listing specific hot spots and reading up on how the cell to wifi handover operates then you can really take advantage of the lower priced plans like the $5 and $10 plan. It takes a bit of messing around with but since Republic lets you change between plan twice a month it’s easy to experiment with this stuff.

    THE BIGGEST benefit I’ve had from switching to Republic Wireless is that I’m not paying the $95 bucks to AT&T or even the $55 I paid to T-mobile before this! Sometimes i forget that I even have a phone bill at all, haha.

  3. Interesting, my only concerns as a prospective customer is the coverage map. My residence is located in an orange area (4G), a few blocks to the east blue (3G). Then rather large areas of gray (roaming area).

    What, if any, type of service could one expect in the “roaming areas”?

    1. Hi Dick,

      Yea, since Republic uses the Sprint network the coverage can be a concern depending on where you live and definitely one of the top things to consider for prospective customers.

      The thing about roaming to watch out for is that Republic used to have free roaming, but have recently switch their roaming policy to give customers 25MB cap per month on free roaming outside of the Sprint network.

      I think if network coverage is a concern, then Republic may not be a good choice and to look at MVNOs and budget brands that utilize the bigger networks like Cricket, which it appears you already have from your comment in the Cricket reviews 🙂

  4. I have a moto g and this phone its giving me so much problems… I have the phone for a year now and even recomended it to my aunt which she bought it and had to cancel her account because her phone was giving her problems…i admit the price is good but the phone sucks..my phone make calls with out me dialing, it frezes all the time and on top of evrything doesnt make calls when i want to i had an emergency where i had to call people and the calls wouldnt go through im so pisst off and my messages dont even work
    .. Its a chame…im really dissapointed..

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