Republic Wireless has announced that customers will soon be able to purchase currently popular smartphone models on its network beginning July. Its initial lineup of offered devices will be made up of Moto X Pure Edition, Google Nexus 5X by LG, Google Nexus 6P by Huawei, Samsung Galaxy S6, Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016), Samsung Galaxy S7, and Samsung Galaxy S7 edge.
Along with the expansion, the company also revealed that it partnered with a new nationwide GSM carrier which claims to have the fastest nationwide 4G LTE network. This means that apart from Sprint, the company is now integrated with a second carrier that will carry out its seamless hybrid Wi-Fi and cellular service.
The latest announcement highlights the company's vision of making its remarkably affordable and fair services available to the huge majority of Android users. It understands how its hybrid Wi-Fi calling technology, although it uses a purely innovative approach, comes with certain compromises such as being available to only a limited number of compatible devices and cellular networks.
Since its launch in 2011, Republic has managed to offer at least one or two budget devices from a single OEM, which is none other than Motorola. The company also had Sprint as its sole roaming partner.
CEO David Morken of Republic said that customers have been vocal in telling them that they don't intend to settle as far as choosing a handset and network is concerned.
He added that the company, going forward, will be among those which shall get the Android flagships as they hit the market.
Republic has attributed the changes to its device lineup and carrier network addition to some key breakthroughs on its Adaptive Coverage technology.
In the past, the company depended on custom firmware in order to integrate Wi-Fi calling into the baseband level. Now, its calling system can work in the native dialers and texting apps using more devices after it successfully pulled off the patent-locked SIM cards and new APIs within the Android Marshmallow space.
Republic Wireless is also launching a new pricing tier for its subscribers and offering its first device financing scheme. According to Morken, the company will now have a $20 per month option that will include unlimited talk and text and high speed LTE data of up to 1 GB. Full details shall be announced in the next couple of weeks.
