It appears a new wholesale agreement with one of the U.S. GSM-based mobile carriers (most of you probably think it is T-Mobile US) will allow Republic Wireless customers to bring their own devices, use a wider variety of Android devices, and activate as simply as they have in the past.
At launch, Republic Wireless, which uses a “Wi-Fi-first” approach to connectivity, had used only the Sprint network for fallback mobile access.
Some might argue Republic Wireless now is becoming a more “typical” mobile virtual network operator,” and less a “Wi-Fi-first” MVNO.
Some of us would argue something else: as has been the case in other areas, Republic Wireless now benefits from changes wrought in the mobile ecosystem by Google. Google Fi, in particular, uses the same Wi-Fi-first approach, and then defaults to either the Sprint or T-Mobile US networks, depending on signal strength.
It appears that Republic Wireless now will leverage the device and network capabilities Google Fi has created to change its own operations in a similar way, possibly in more limited ways to start, such as gaining the ability to support a wider range of devices created to support Google Fi or T-Mobile US network requirements.
“From day one, we’ve listened to our members and their number-one request has been an increased selection of compatible phones,” says Chris Chuang, co-founder and COO of Republic Wireless. “Over the years, you’ve consistently and passionately told us you want more devices, better devices, better pricing and ways to pay for devices, faster device launches, faster device software updates, and the ability to bring your own device to us (or bring it away from us to another carrier).”
Finally, we’ve come up with a new approach for our technology that will allow us to offer more devices sooner and get software updates deployed quicker,” says Chuang.
From the start, Republic Wireless says it wanted a “native phone experience,” not just an app approach. “From 2011 through 2015, there was only one way to achieve this vision - through custom modification of the Android ROM,” says Chuang.
Now, customers can take an off-the-shelf unlocked device (from Republic’s approved list), pop in the Republic SIM card, download the Republic app, and receive the same great Republic experience in just a few minutes that used to require us to do many months of deep ROM integration work in tight partnership with the device manufacturer and cellular carrier partner.
Because it no longer needs to do deep integration and certification work with the device manufacturer and cellular carrier, Republic now will be able to launch new phones at the same time as everyone else, perform updates to its service and apps as fast as it wants (using Google Play), increase the places our members can buy its services (think Amazon and other places where unlocked devices are sold).
The new phones will have to run Android 6.0 M. Theses phones initially will only run on the GSM carrier partner only. Sprint support is coming later in 2016.
Some might argue Republic Wireless is becoming a more-traditional MVNO. Some of us would argue something else, that once again, attackers and innovators in the mobile market are creating capabilities and trends that many others in the ecosystem can use as well.
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