Is Republic Wireless for Real or Another Zero1?

Republic Wireless has a bit of pre-launch credibility in the form of a GigaOm article detailing its supposed bloodlines and plan of attack: There’s corporate parent Bandwidth.com, an established provider of, yes, bandwith as then as VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services. There’s an apparent deal in place with Sprint to use their CDMA network for voice and data “roaming,” when Wi-Fi isn’t available. And there are screenshots of generic Android phone screens with the new carrier’s name on them. All of which could be a ruse, a fake trail of fake gold bricks headed straight to fake town – just like the trail Zero1 Wireless laid for the mobile media a few years back.

The time it

Back at the time it was AT&T’s cellular plus VoIP plus magic software equals low cost unlimited everything on any GSM phone! Except the whole Zero1 thing turned out to be a pyramid scheme, or some such legally dubious venture that led to a bunch of legal threats levied at various members of the media and for the moment one multimillion dollar judgement against them.

Now it’s Sprint’s cellular plus VoIP magic software equals low cost unlimited everything on special CDMA phones! Or something of the same type. Republic hasn’t officially announced anything other than “On November 8, everything changes.” Like I said, Republic has anyway a bit of credibility going for it in the form of its parent company, who seems to have the infrastructure and leverage to make a crazy scheme like, “$19 everything over VoIP” happen. Nevertheless there are all sorts of questions to be answered here:

Lucky for us nothing’s been made official but, so there’s plenty of time to come up with more questions previously we as a matter of fact have the right to demand answers. I, for one, hope Republic Wireless turns out to be all that and a bag of chips. The innovation is in place to until further notice allow early adopters to suffer through some hiccups – and limited handset choices – in the name of cutting their wireless bills by 400% or more. So it’s high time somebody came along and disrupted an industry that, frankly, has been in need of disruption for a long, long time now.