REPUBLIC WIRELESS
BIG IDEA: Unlimited mobile calling,
texting, and data for $19 a month
David Morken is on a mission to lower
Americans’ cell-phone bills. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Bandwidth.com, a
$120 million company based in Raleigh,
North Carolina, that provides VoIP services to
businesses. Bandwidth.com
recently launched its own
mobile-phone company,
Republic wireless, with a deal
that sounds almost too good
to be true: unlimited calling,
texting, and data—all for just
$19 a month.
morken can afford to keep
the price low, because the
calls and data are transmitted
primarily via wi-Fi. when wi-Fi
isn’t available, the phone uses
the Sprint cellular network at
no additional charge.
morken started thinking
about ways to lower mobile-
phone costs after his family’s
at&t bill reached nearly $1,000
a month. (he had been bribing
his six children with iphones in
exchange for straight a’s.) why
couldn’t calls be mostly trans-
mitted over wi-Fi, he wondered,
something most people already
had at work and at home?
morken rolled out the ser-
vice to the public four months
ago after about a year of beta
testing. Republic wireless has
50,000 customers and expects
that number to double by the
end of 2013. “Republic wireless
is potentially one of the worst
nightmares for telecom provid-
ers,” says andrew Borg, an
industry analyst at aberdeen
Group, a Boston-based market
research firm.
to use the service, most
customers simply set up their
phones to automatically connect
to their wi-Fi networks at home
and at work. then they just dial
as usual. the phone can detect
when the wi-Fi signal is strong
enough to support a phone call.
If it isn’t, the phone uses Sprint’s
network. morken says the aver-
age customer uses wi-Fi more
than 60 percent of the time.
the service does have a few
big drawbacks. For starters, you
can use only one phone: the
motorola Defy Xt, a small
smartphone with a 3.7-inch
screen, which operates on an
older version of android. the
phone, which is optimized for
wi-Fi, costs $249, plus a $10
activation fee (or just $99, if
customers agree to pay an extra
$10 a month for service). Sec-
ond, calls have been known to
drop when a customer leaves an
area with wi-Fi and the phone
switches to the Sprint network.
Can You Hear Me Now? when wi-Fi isn’t available, Republic wireless phones use Sprint’s cellular network.
Cellular service,
by the numbers
87%
Share of american adults
who have cell phones. about
half of those are smartphones.
61%
portion of american
households that have wi-Fi
$71
the average individual’s monthly
wireless bill (across all phone
plans), including taxes and fees
$19
what Republic wireless
charges for unlimited calling,
texting, and data. taxes and
fees add another $3 or so.
plus, Republic wireless lacks a
customer service hotline. Subscribers may email the company
or submit an online ticket, but
they are encouraged to solve
one another’s problems by using
the company’s message boards.
If Republic wireless wants to
make a dent in the market, it
must address some of those
problems, says Borg: “Geeks
and early adopters are attracted
to Republic wireless both for the
price and for the opportunity to
stick it to the man. But going
forward, Republic wireless must
make the user experience a bit
more seamless: fewer dropped
calls, at least one device with a
larger screen, and the current
version of android. with that in
place, it’s poised to potentially
disrupt the telecom world.”
“best” phone will have a larger
screen and be a “hero device”
equivalent to a Samsung Galaxy.
all three phones will operate on
the latest version of android.
BRent wIneBRenneR/Getty
