Republic Wireless to launch $19 voice & SMS service

Republic Wireless, a division of Cary, N.C.-based VoIP and bandwidth provider Bandwidth.com will launch a hybrid cellular voice and VoIP service on November 8, 2011. Jason Kincaid first reported the story, but we have some more details and a couple of screenshots.The service, which costs $ 19 a month, will allow you to make VoIP phone calls over Wi-Fi and will switch to cellular-based calling when a Wi-Fi network is unavailable. Text messages can also be sent via Wi-Fi or cellular networks. The service does require a special Android handset. The plan includes unlimited voice and text messaging.

Just like UMA, Just Different.

For those who have played around with the combination of Wi-Fi and voice calling known as UMA, the idea behind Republic Wireless is no different than the Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA)-based service that is bundled in some T-Mobile BlackBerry devices. T-Mobile also has UMA available on some Android phones. When inside the office or your home or inside a Wi-Fi hot-spot, all phone calls and text messages are sent and received via the Internet. When there is no Wi-Fi, the calls are routed over a cellular network.

Republic is doing pretty much the same.  The company however says that it has built its own soup-to-nuts solution to offer the hybrid calling functionality. The company is going to buy wholesale minutes from third party carriers such as Sprint. Bandwidth.com could easily use other wireless carriers as its wholesale partners. It is not clear if the plans would include 3G wireless data access or if it will cost extra per month.And like Kineto Wireless’ UMA that is used by T-Mobile, Republic requires you to buy a special phone that can handle this hybrid calling. The company has built this hardware based on Google’s Android OS. The screenshots below show how the end-customer can find out if they are on Wi-Fi or on the cellular network.

Is cheap enough?

As a long-standing fan of UMA, I like this idea of having one number automatically switching between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. It is also attractive to those who travel internationally and want to save on calling back to the US.

However, I cannot get past the need for a special hardware. That need for special client hardware was always a problem for UMA. From the pricing, my best guess is that Republic is going after customers on a tight budget.And in order to attract this set of customers, the company is going to find a way to subsidize the hardware that will increase its total customer acquisition costs, which in turn means longer pay-off time for these customers.