World HOt toPPIX

Republic Wireless, a Sprint MVNO that launched in November, announced late last week that it is ditching its "fair use threshold" and is now offering a.

Republic Wireless, a Sprint MVNO that launched in November, announced late last week that it is ditching its ?fair use threshold? and is now offering a truly unlimited talk, text and data plan for $19 a month. When the carrier first made its debut, it advertised ?unlimited data? but said it reserved the right to kick customers off of its network if they abused the unlimited data offering and exceeded the usage outlined in its fair use policy. ?Some of your feedback about our CUI concept and fair use thresholds ranged from confusion to extreme criticism, with a wide variety of thoughts and suggestions in between,? Republic Wireless?s general manager Brian Dally said in a company blog post. ?Some judged our marketing to be ?deceptive.? Others felt our concepts were just too complicated, and unnecessary to expose to end users.? He continued, ?Rather than revising our fair use policy, we?ve decided not to have one at all. There will simply be no thresholds, and no risk of losing service.? There is still one caveat, however: Republic Wireless is currently offering its ?unlimited data? plan with a beta label and it will re-evaluate whether or not to continue offering unlimited data at the end of the beta. Republic Wireless routes its customers?s data over Wi-Fi networks and only uses Sprint?s 3G network when Wi-Fi isn?t available.

This is what Jobs was thinking of doing. By using Wi-Fi, you simply ditch the entire wireless phone industry's constraints and costs. Cablevision has been doing public Wi-Fi in the NY Metro area for a couple of years now, and I can tell you the build out is a hell of a lot faster than anyone's 4G network, judging by its prevalence. Wi-Fi is also faster than most 4G. Once you experience this, you come to realize this is a more viable alternative to the standard wireless options than you may have imagined, especially if you live in a densely populated area. And think how much cheaper the build out costs are for Wi-Fi, which is a far more mature technology.

But by using Wi-Fi, you totally alienate anyone that doesn't have unlimited data through their own ISP or you use slow public Wi-Fi. The only places outside of ones home I've seen fast Wi-Fi is at Colleges/Universities or Government Offices, that's it.