Easy Set Up for New Republic Moto Phone
June 2022 Update - Republic's early claim to fame was they were a WiFi first MVNO. This means the phone preferentially connected to WiFi and voice and text work even if there is no Cell signal. Initially this required them to modify Android firmware limiting the available of phones. Later as Android matured they were able to do the same by simply installing an app.
Recently things have changed. T-Mobile purchased Sprint. Sprint was the carrier Republic used. Then about a year ago Dish networks (Sat TV guys) bought Republic. Recently Republic made changes to their plans that severely reduced their value to us. At this point I'm unclear if Republic is still using T-Mobile/Sprint or have switched to AT&T for us older LTE customers. However for us the most important change is they dropped support for WiFi first via the Republic app. This is important here in terrain challenged NH because our phones would work anywhere we were able to connect to WiFi. They have discontinued their app and now it is up to the phone vendor whether or not they support WiFi first. Our Moto phones do not natively support this so the change left us high and dry as now the phones no longer work in some areas of the house. I could install a Cell signal booster but they are fairly expensive and that does not address my other concern. Here in NH we occasionally have weeklong power outages due to massive ice storms. Some cell sites will have difficulty maintaining power that long. We recently switched to Consolidated Networks fiber PON internet. So as long as we are able to keep our LAN powered up we are able to use our cell phones as fiber does not require outside plant power. As long at the local telephone exchange stays powered up and we are able to power our LAN we were good to go. However now if the local cell site is down now our phones are useless even if we have an active WiFi internet connection.
All in all a very disappointing turn of events after being a happy Republic Wireless customer for years.
October 2021 Update - 6th year with Republic. the new Moto phones are working out well, nice having a battery that lasts all day. Being geezers the newer version of Android is taking some getting used to but overall happy with the phones and Republic Wireless. Had an issue with text messaging on my wife's phone. Turned out Google text mode called RCS chat was enabled preventing texting to some phones. Interesting it was also enabled on my phone and did not seem to cause any problems. The interaction with Republic tech support was rather confusing as we had no idea what the feature was and the method they used (and my Googlefu searches) to explain the specific settings were somewhat different on our version of Android. As we had never consciously turned on the feature had no idea which magical switch settings to disabled it. Turns out RCS chat is controlled by (Chat features - enable chat features) Nowhere does it refer to RCS and I've always though Chat and text were synonymous so it never occurred to me to disable it until my somewhat convoluted interaction with tech support.
May 2021 Update - we were having problems with our old Moto E phones (2015), mainly memory, even though we had 32GB Micro SD cards main system memory was full, Google keeps adding apps we have no use for. In addition USB data on my wife's phone stopped working, just charging, so I needed to pop out the SD card to save photos.
We opted for low end Moto G play (2021), $150 US each. Both our kids have the 2020 version and were happy with their phones. I added 64GB micro SD cards and purchased Otterbox cases for both phones. We don't use Google cloud services but migrating stuff from the old phones was pretty easy. We were not able to keep our grandfathered Republic plans so choose 1GB data for each phone @ $20 per month (plus fees) with a discount if you pay a year in advance for $200. Opted for yearly prepay, with fees came to $494.88 for both phones or $41 per month for the two of us. The phones are USB C so I needed to get a bunch of new cables for our car chargers.
So far so good the larger screen is nice for these old eyeballs, phone still fits in packet even with the case, but I wouldn't want anything larger. Android 10 takes a little getting used to. Much like what MS is doing with Windows some features are harder to find and require more clicks. Nice being able to add apps without constant low memory warning. Android does a good job managing memory usage and puts as much as possible on the SD card.
Sprint coverage is spotty here in terrain challenged NH, but most places we spend time at have WiFi so that is not a huge problem.
October 2020 Update - fifth year with Republic Wireless. Have not noticed any changes due to the Sprint/Tmobile merger. Still waiting for availability of 5G phones before I buy new phones for myself and wife. Both of our grown children also use Republic and have purchased new Moto phones this year for various reasons.
October 2019 Update - fourth year with Republic Wireless. Our entire family now have Republic accounts, our son switched a few months ago. As posted previously the Moto-E phones have been a disappointment, relatively frequent Android crashes. I would have thought Android, being a new O/S, would be more stable. We plan on waiting a year or so for 5G so settle out to replace my wife and my phone. At that time we will lose our grandfathered account that credits unused data each month but still the overall cost will continue to be low. Until then happy with the service and the low monthly cost.
October 2018 Update - three years with Republic Wireless. Both my wife and I have Republic Wireless accounts. Sprint coverage here in NH can be spotty, in that case phone roams to Verizon. Calls and texting is transparent but roaming burns through data allocation quickly so I have disabled roaming data. Most of the places we go have Wi-Fi so that is not a big deal. The Android Moto phones have been a disappointment as they tend to crash and reboot fairly often.
But overall the plan works well for us. Inexpensive and upgrading from a flip phone has been great.
October 2017 Update - two years with Republic Wireless. Other then occasional Moto E Android phone crashes (myself and my wife) everything has been working fine. The refund plan we are on is grandfathered so at some point when we upgrade phones will need to shift to a different plan. Sprint coverage here in NH is pretty spotty but being Wi-Fi eccentric and roaming to Verizon we have not experienced any significant problems.
My wife and I have been Republic Wireless customers since Sept of 2015, at the recommendation of our daughter. Republic is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). The primary carrier is Sprint with roaming to Verizon in our area. Republic�s claim to fame is they are Wi-Fi centric. If the phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network voice/text and Internet use Wi-Fi. Here in terrain challenged NH being able to use Wi-Fi is a huge advantage. My home office is in the basement and cell coverage by all carriers is pretty spotty. Our children have Cable Wi-Fi so that covers many of the places we frequent. Until recently Republic required special Android firmware hacks that slowed the release of O/S upgrades and limited availability to a couple of Moto Android phones. They just announced a third version of their service that loads their software as an app, allowing wider choice of phones.
We are not heavy data users, since most of our Internet use occurs at home (app updates and software installation). The version of the plan we have rebates unused cellular Internet access substantially reducing our average monthly bill. Voice and text is unmetered regardless how the phone connects. Internet access is unmetered when on Wi-Fi. Cellular Internet access is sold in 1GB chunks. The down side is when roaming there is a heavy cost multiplier for Internet access. I set default phone behavior to prevent Internet access when roaming. We do a lot of hiking so I�ve download several mapping apps. That way if we are out of cellular range the app still works.
They recently offered tethering � allowing you connect a laptop to the phone to access cellular data. I have not used the feature, but if we were traveling a lot and Wi-Fi is not available probably come in handy.
We have version two of the plan with Moto E phones. I added 32GB microSD cards, mainly to store pictures. As an old fart who remembers when a 500 MB HDD was a big desktop drive the incredible density of flash drives is incredible. The basic plan is $10 a month plus another $15 for 1 GB per month, larger caps are available, plus $2.25 in taxes. This comes to total of $54.50 for both of us or about $30 a month when the unused cell data credit is factored in. At $15 each that is only a little more expensive then the Verizon prepaid flip phones we used to have. The Moto E phones were a $129 each, OtterBox another $35, and the 32GB MicroSD cards another $25 each.
We took advantage of FCC number portability to transfer our old Verizon numbers to Republic. The phones actually have two numbers the �public� customer phone number and another stealth Sprint number. The down side is the stealth number accepts calls and text which can be a little confusing.
Battery life is pretty good, a day if you are careful. In addition to the wall wart chargers that came with the phones I leave mine connected to a USB port in my office and purchased dual car chargers for each of our cars.
I�m not much of a voice phone user but being able to use the phone anywhere is nice. My main use is texting and the hiking apps. Sprint coverage is pretty spotty here in NH but having the phone roam to Verizon means we are rarely out of cell phone range.
One down side is both of us have experienced several Android crashes that required rebooting the phone. I na�vely assumed Android being a new O/S supporting a limited hardware base would be more bulletproof. The first time it happened we were out hiking so it was pretty disturbing as one quickly gets addicted to GPS and digital maps. On the plus side we have never lost any data, just need to be patient during the reboot process. The camera is OK in daylight, there is no flash on this phone so indoor pictures can be pragmatic. The video recording mode is pretty cool.
All in all we are both happy with Republic and the Moto smart phones. Hard to believe so much computing and networking power can be packed into such a small device.
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updated 52 days ago
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Source: http://www.dslreports.com/comment/4143/94368
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