Republic Wireless replacing shop phone & internet?

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FrameMakers

FrameMakers

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Mar 20, 2001
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Loc
Powell, OH
So I have looked into Republic Wireless and now get emails from them. Soon they are going to offer the Motorola Moto X phone with unlimited everything for $40 a month. ($299 for the phone)

I have been thinking about this for the shop to take over my phone and internet with an app like FoxFi to turn it into a wireless hotspot. I could also use it for credit card processing using one of the plug in readers like Plus, Square or Paypal Etc. This runs on the Sprint Network and according to Sprint my shop is in their highest rated 4G (WiMax) area.

This would be a savings of $120 a month over my landlines/internet.

Is this a viable reliable option?

Is the 4G WiMax service fast enough for typical internet use?

http://republicwireless.com/moto-x-faqs#plans
 
Well finding out that Sprint does not have 4G LTE in this area, and the Moto X is a 4G LTE phone and will not work on their 4G Wimax network. So confusing.

I wonder if 3G would be enough for my needs which include email, facebook, grumble and pandora.

Edit: Did a little more digging and it seems that 4G LTE is showing up in some areas of Columbus and should be done by December, so this might still be viable.
 
That's a confusing can of worms :) Here is my interpretation of the industry, as a telecom guy:

Wimax was Sprint's original 4th generation service, which they were getting with from Clearwire. They market it as "4G", which it technically can be called, while they're in the process of upgrade to the considerably faster 4g LTE product. In 2011, Sprint announced that they will be terminating their future contract with Wimax provider Clearwire, which I believe was in financial trouble at the time. Sprint is rapidly in the process of deploying a much faster (true 4G) network, with LTE/4G technology. When this is complete, they'll be pulling the plug on the slower Wimax technology. The older phones and devices that are only capable of Wimax will need to be replaced with new phones that have the LTE chip/radio. Sprint just got started with their deployment this year, and will take at least a year to finish. I believe they absorbed/bought Clearwire, and will be re-purposing its share of the bandwidth spectrum from wimax to lte, once the plug is pulled.
sprint-mosaik-big.jpg


AT&T is also replacing their "4G" (upgraded 3G, known as HSPA+) with the LTE 4G standard. They also run a bunch of misleading ads, claiming to have "the largest '4G' network", but they are referring to the beefed up 3G product. They hope to be finished with 4G/LTE before the end of this year, which is an ambitious goal.
att-mosaik-big.jpg


Verizon has 4G LTE, with nearly 100% coverage. They were the first one to fully deploy the technology, starting the service in 2010.
verizon-mosaik-big.jpg


TMobile is hoping to be finished with their 4G LTE build out by the end of this year. From the looks of this map, they have barely started. This map also shows the MetroPCS coverage areas.
tmo-mosaik-big.jpg


These are the Tier 1 major providers. Many of the others are resellers/partners of the above. The nice maps are as of August 2013 and credit goes to the Fierce Wireless technology newsletter, and Mosaik.
 
Thanks Mike.

Do you think that true 4g LTE would be fast enough to handle the shop needs? I am just looking at this as a major cost savings.
 
yea I get about 30MB/s speed with LTE here in Providence, on Verizon. That's with a perfect signal, though. Real world speed is probably closer to 22.

Wimax, which I used to have, usually got about 3-4MB/s. I don't think they will be pulling the plug on it for at least another year.

Be aware, though, that "unlimited" probably isn't really unlimited. They may not allow sharing it, either. Read the fine print of that contract :) Then again, if they sell the same plan for a personal hotspot device - then it would be permitted.
 
FrameMakers said:
Do you think that true 4g LTE would be fast enough to handle the shop needs? I am just looking at this as a major cost savings.
Click to expand...

Dave,

When our hardwired, wireless internet provider goes down, we turn on the FoxFi app and tether our network through Verizon 4G/LTE via our Motorola RazrM. It is more than capable of satisfying our needs for operating our ecommerce business, daily website editing, Google voice, browsing, simple gaming, etc for 2 simultaneous users. It is actually faster than our fixed connection by a factor of several times. Our fixed connection is unlimited bandwidth and our Verizon plan is only 2Gb/month so we don't make a habit out of it.

Now, in town, typical 4G speeds during the week are 3Mbps on a good day and just below 2Mbps on an average day and sometimes below 1Mbps. It's probably the only Verizon 4G towers in the country that are that bogged down. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Verizon. People complain all the time about it. When we get within range of the closest tower to our house, 10 miles from town, speeds always kick back up to the 15Mbps range.

Not all companies allow use of the FoxFi or similar apps without paying the added fee. Verizon is bound by FCC rules to allow it without charge.
 
I'm a big fan of PDAnet/Foxfi, too, and bought the paid version.

When travelling and when at WCAF, I use it extensively. I think I had about a dozen+ grumbler/ppfa friends using my hotspot last year, at the show, booth pc's, instructors in the classes, and in the hotel across the street. So many that the old phone was getting hot, and the charge was going DOWN while plugged in. hah I'm still on a Verizon unlimited plan for data, until May 2014. (I since switched to a Samsung Galaxy S4 in May 2013)

There are wholesale sellers of Verizon, just like there are for Sprint. https://www.pagepluscellular.com/ is one of them. I believe STRAIGHT TALK (models ending in C or V), Talkforgood, NextG,and Selectel are others.

I dont recall who Walmart uses for their cellular service. Probably Sprint or TMobile.

edited: I found a full list of virtual carriers and who they buy from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_mobile_virtual_network_operators
 
Dave,

Another thing to consider when you "Port" your existing phone number from a landline to a wireless line, you disappear from the phonebook listings. I'm not sure if you can "PAY" to keep a listing but that fee may offset the cost savings. Not being in the phonebook database also eventually cause you to disappear from online listings too.

That is a plus for us since we do not have a storefront for visitors. Losing the listing also lost the number from robo and telemarketer calls. Google Voice is really nice.
 
Funny you should mention the phone book, the new At&T one was delivered today. I checked to see and we are not listed in the yellow page section anymore. We are still in the business white pages. I told the woman delivering it that I didn't want it and she said that she had to deliver it. It went right into the dumpster.
 
Most of the telephone number databases get 99.9% of their data from the file purchased from the local landline company. If your number doesn't exist in that landline company's database, your listing will also disappear from all the online databases.

The physical phonebook listing may not be important but you probably don't want to disappear from the online listings.
 
I have been playing with this a little bit using my verizon smart phone. I have an ATT phone system at work that has a bluetooth cell function which lets me use my ATT handsets but dial out and receive calls from the cell line.
I can USB tether my phone to my PC and have surprisingly fast internet. I have been less successful trying to pick up a FoxFi wireless signal, but I am guessing that is more a settings issue. This means that in theory this should work and save me about $120 a month.

My only question is if I use a USB tethered connection, can I connect my network through this computer that I am tethered to? My current internet goes from the wall to the combined modem/router then is hard wired to the various PCs in the shop.
 
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