My posting on RW forums - Semi review

[MobileBoost]

This is my post I put up on RW forums. They are a good company with a different outlook on a possible future of communication. I have great respect for the company, the community, and this one. This is why I am posting why I am leaving RW, but I urge others to try them if it fits your needs and the price point is good.





PERSONAL DISCLAIMER - I like RW (but I'm leaving them in a few days) Please don't try to talk me out of it, because if you read this, you will see why.

I talked to a friend about his RW phone (LG Optimus) and he really liked it. When I was accepted into the beta I got in on Wave E (single band, unknown dual band at that time). I knew full well that The Defy XT was a LOW end phone. Outside of the main towns, I end up losing service. I can at least use some parts of Google Maps for directions by saving the maps, but without service, this is unusable for me personally and for a business by a large amount.

I became a member of this forum, I read opinions and reviews from online, howard forums, android communities, and even unrelated forums such as ar15.com. Some were good and some were bad, some were VERY bad.

I made up my own mind to join RW for the following reasons. I have decent Sprint coverage in my area (WHEN I can roam. I'm in a small town in WI and Sprint is the first or 2nd most popular wireless carrier in my area). Unlimited Talk, Text, and Data! (Who doesn't want this?) I didn't blindly believe this either. I checked the forums, I asked about my usage, etc, and I concluded that it will work perfectly. It did, BTW! I had zero issues with data usage.

I am a business owner. I have an office just outside of my town and am a Massage Therapist. My use of this phone is for personal and business. My friends and family call my regular cell phone number and everyone else gets my Google Voice number which is my business number. This method has been cost effective and has worked without issues on Sprint, VW, and Straight Talk.

Most of the time, RW works perfectly! I want to be completely clear about this. I'm not exaggerating either. Their service they offer is really quite good, for what I am paying. But their are problems that don't work with my needs. I use WiFi at home and in my office. Calls over WiFi are often to quiet for me to hear. My solutions are to deal with it or call people back, or have them call me back. That isn't great for personal use, but unacceptable to use with patients. Their are times I can not make or receive calls on WiFi or the Cell towers. Restarting the phone doesn't help, and this is also unacceptable for business use, but I can deal with it for personal use (to a point). Their have been several times including tonight where I was trying to reach my G/F for almost 15 minutes. A phone reset didn't help, and it didn't work over WiFi or Cell towers. This alone isn't even a deal breaker for me... shocking I know. I joined this beta, because I believe in it and know how important the beta phase is for a product.

The Defy XT is dated. Their is no way around this issue for my needs. It is running Android 2.3. I have some apps that I used to run on my OLD phone that required Android 4.0 such as Lemon's wallet app to keep all of my credit cards in one location should I lose/forget my wallet etc. I run a scheduling app and use several other apps on a daily basis. After installing these apps, I don't have room for the exercise apps that I run. The RAM of this phone is VERY low. It is bloated to begin with with motoblur, Moto apps, installed Google apps, etc. The Defy XT just runs slow and sluggish. Even when I make a phone call with other things taken off and not running in the background I have lag many times with just turning the phone on, hitting a number, and I wait for the Google Voice prompt for which number I want to dial with, and then I hit it and sometimes have more lag. This is acceptable, but another annoyance and it makes the phone hard to use. While I'm on this issue, I'd also like to state that as a personal annoyance that makes me want to hate this phone more is that the phone changes orientation on screens that most do not. I do not want to have to change this manually all the time either. Combine that with how slow the Defy XT is and I find myself wasting time and that is something I greatly dislike doing in my personal or business life.

The fact that I can't root and transfer my old workout data is a HUGE loss for me. As a Massage Therapist you can guess that I probably eat healthy, workout, and keep track of things not only for my own benefit, but I tell others and show them how to use these apps. Without the ability to root the device I couldn't transfer my workout data and some of these apps learn from past data. This makes several of the apps useless to me.

I always try to manually turn the WiFi off. I run into problems with it thinking it can use WiFi, when it can't. I could even deal with this. I'm a power stickler and did this manually. However something I ran into that was a problem was when I was leaving the office and I received a phone call. I'd leave to go home and realize the phone was on WiFi in the parking lot when I took the call and then I'd drop the call. No matter how often I tried to remember to do this, the order of my clean up, work, etc was always different and many times I simply forgot to turn the wifi off before walking out to the parking lot. I ended up hanging up on patients, potential patients, g/f, and friends. This is another thing that was a great annoyance to me.

Most of the month I'm at home or at my office which has WiFi. I use around 2-3Gb of data/month MAX off wifi. Most months are less.

Something that is a great annoyance to me is Sprint's network speeds as well. 3G Sprint coverage is very slow. When I'm doing a mobile massage and I have Pandora One playing (Yes I have to legally pay for it, plus no one wants a massage with commercials ) The songs have at least 3x as much silence between them, which isn't as nice for my clients. There is no Wi Max around me, nor LTE and it's solid Sprint coverage in town. This isn't something Republic Wireless has control over and in coming years they will have LTE or move on to another carrier.

To summarize my solution
I purchased a Nexus 4 and will be going to Net10. The 3g and HSPA+ is far faster on ATT. ST worked perfect for me so I know Net10 will as well. The phones will simply work most of the time for data, voice, and text. (Not that I ever had any issues with data or text). I did have a big problem with getting my mom to email me photos. She did a few times and since stopped sending me pictures as she wanted to just text it ot a few people. This irked me quite a bit on RW's service, but I knew this going into it.

On Sprint 3G I can't check my schedule for work and book apointments while on the phone with them. Data & voice doesn't work at the time time, so CDMA LTE, or GSM are my only options that will fix this solution. Sprint 3g will never work for this. Having to call clients back about the schedule is annoying being mobile as well. You can only come up with so many lies and cover ups for this

They don't have as many outages, phone calls will not be to quiet, I can run all my apps, my phone will be rooted once again, I can use voice and data at the same time to check my schedule and book appointments, I won't have issues with wifi and towers not switching over making use of the phone more of a hindrance then a benefit sometimes.

IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ

I come away from my experience with Republic Wireless not as a man with a chip on his shoulder, but as someone who is proud and happy to have been part of this beta program. The price is great, and the service they offer is amazing. Had I not been a business owner I would have stuck with it to the breaking even point and then purchased a new phone and switched until some of these things were fixed or changed.

I urge everyone who can, to continue the beta! I'm still recommending Republic Wireless to people I know who can use them. I have read about people thinking the phone is over priced. It's not much more then competitors and this is a BETA. This is why I signed up. I signed up for the beta of video games, I beta tested Windows 95, 98, 98SE, 2000, and Windows 8! These were great times and great experiences. My insight and ideas helped change the evolution and final product. Do not give up hope with this company. It's very expensive and time consuming to create a business and grow it. I know from first hand experience on this part.

I wish everyone here good luck (I will watch these forums and even contribute some still). I wish RW good luck and hope that someone reads this as well. I think they are aware of my issues with the short falls of their product and service already, but feedback is always beneficial if it's good or bad, as long as it's honest and fair.

If you read all of this, I hope you understand that I do not dislike RW and in fact, hope that in the future they fix the issues I have with it so I can return to them.

[bizeemere]

Wow, this IS a shocker. That you even tried them. Back in May and August you said that you were counting them out and staying far away from them. Did you call them and they sweetened the pot for you to with perhaps a cheaper cost on the phone? A direct dial number to someone on staff? A couple of months of free service? An extended time to return the phone? Free accessories?

???

[MobileBoost]

I was reading the forums and decided that the downsides would be things I could overcome with settings, usage, and choices. In the end, I can't say their is really a single reason that I am stopping my service with them, but it was many things. It's not that I didn't know most of the things going into the beta program, but it simply isn't working for me. I thought the quiet calls would be fixed very quickly and things are simply taking far longer to fix and change.

[bizeemere]

Wow, you leave RW, then someone else posts on their forums that they are very displeased with the service, how it was handled and how RW was not totally honest with the single-band rollout, so you decide to take part in the shill rage and become an attack dog for RW? Really?!?!?

[MobileBoost]

Wow, you leave RW, then someone else posts on their forums that they are very displeased with the service, how it was handled and how RW was not totally honest with the single-band rollout, so you decide to take part in the shill rage and become an attack dog for RW? Really?!?!?

The single band phone was a huge mistake on RW part. They are upgrading everyone affected to free new dual band phones right now. They are making that part right.

[bizeemere]

1) The port from Hell
2) They are still dipping into your CC account for money even after you've left them.

I'm surprised that you haven't called the CEO to rip him a new one. Moreover, why haven't you filed a complaint with the BBB? Hopefully, now, you will see why there are so many angry people outing this company - either on their forums or other websites. They simply have no ethics when dealing with customers. Their MO seems to be - "We will hold onto you money for as long as we can without refunding it to you" AND "We will keep billing you even though you are not with us any longer until you scream and say 'uncle'."

People would be well advised to avoid RW until they get new leadership in there to turn things around and start behaving like a company that really values its customers.

[cparker76]

I've noticed most of the complaints on here come from one person on almost every thread. And from one thread, didn't you say you weren't even a customer? So if that's the case, why would you spend so much time bashing a company you're not even part of. I found one thread where you had stalked their employees LinkedIn pages as well. Who does that? It seems like your energy could be wasted with something more useful in life besides trying to take down a company with complaints that aren't even yours. Just saying...

I want people to look at both sides of a story. Don't run from Republic. Read the good and the bad. If you look in the forums you will see plenty of happy customers, not just complainers like this guy. I liked my Virgin Mobile service prior to this, but I never went online to talk about how awesome it was. I only went online when I had problems. I had cheap service with Virgin but it's cheaper now. I wish people would see what can come from getting rid of the big cell companies. But know that there are kinks. You won't get everything handed to you at the snap of a finger. Your impatient ways won't be catered to because you'll have to actually look for your help, not demand it on a phone. Quit complaining and jump on board, or go pay Verizon and ***** all you want.

Bizeemere, I suggest you actually try the service for a month then come back and complain when you're an actual customer, not based off some complaints you found on your stalking of the company.

[bizeemere]

Wow...hahaha...your post actually made me laugh. Stop being such a drama queen. Stalking??? LOL...How comical. I saw someone posting a LinkedIn link on Yelp, so I checked it out. No big deal for clinking on embedded links. Then, to the right were a bunch more RW employees' LinkedIn profiles. Again, no biggie. The entire internet has embedded links and people click on them...get over it, that's how it's designed to work. Ohh, right, you came here to cause a ruckus because you are one of those RW shills that thinks this is the greatest company to come down the pike? You must also think it a good thing for them to hijack people's money and hold it for months on a return, or keep charging customers after they have stopped service, or fail to follow FCC porting laws, and tons more egregious moves by this company.

Quit shilling and propping up this fiasco of a company by defending them. Heck, maybe you are one of those RW employees that masquerades around on the company forums all day trying to pass yourself off as 'just another customer'.

My suggestion to you, keep your nose clean. I *AM* a customer and have not been impressed at all. So, I will post my impressions, opinions and findings for those that want a 'real-world' take on this company, and not the candy-coated drivel that RW puts out. And not to worry 'Oh Shill-meister', I'll stay or leave once I feel the need to. But thanks for your concern about my mobile health and well-being.

PS: People don't need to listen to what I have to say. All they have to do is visit the RW forums and read the TONS of complaints from people wanting their money back and how RW is ignoring them with excuse after excuse as to why they can't honor their 7-10 day refund policy. Just this week alone, I saw 3-4 NEW complaints from DIFFERENT people EVERYDAY. Yeah, I'm not the only one that thinks RW is a sinking ship and ready to capsize; not to mention the Yelp reviews, the BBB complaints, and the bad reviews given by reputable online sites.

[AndroidFoneFan]

Wow, I watched about a dozen videos on RW and read twice that in articles before I went back to them in the last week.
I saw not one bad review. I did see people overly critical of the older phone, but I have no problem with GingerBread like so many power users do.

I did see a few reads on complements, I saw no horrible complaints on the FB page, I saw lots of question from potential new customers that were answered by a forum member and RW CS.

Having been part of the first beta I knew this was not going to be a perfect ride, but this ride is far better that the first one back in 2011.
If you want to see a real meltdown over phone service, swing by the Virgin Mobile FB page. Be sure to take a radiation suit with you because it is hot over there.
The RW page is a park walk compared.

[MobileBoost]

I still watch RW forums and comment almost daily with them on their Facebook page. They have newer and better goals in the future such as BYOD and software apps which are being hinted at. Text messaging over WiFi, their app which is supposed to judge wifi for voice isn't working so hot right now, but it will get better.

It took them 2 months to stop charging my credit card. They had an internal issue. The money was refunded to me, but it took about 9-10 weeks to get it straightened out

I'm currently happy with net10 on my Nexus 4 with voice that always works for my personal and business needs. I'm still waiting to see what RW comes up with next.

The low voice on WiFi is still an issue sometimes FYI. It's a deal breaker if you rely on the phone for business IMO, but for personal it's easy to call back or switch to the towers should you have to. No need to totally bash RW, it's just another option and their CS is getting better with Facebook at least.

[AndroidFoneFan]

My current work phone is on StraightTalk, it's service expires on 3-13-13 after it is turned off I will begin using the RW phone.
The wifi call quality is passable but as a work phone I doubt I will be using the wifi calling much. As with my first run with RW I will end up using it mostly on cell as I will be out working. But I will make the effort to use it at home to balance out the wifi is, my usage on the phone cell side will be lite as I don't do much talking or texting while I'm working but I still need the phone so the office and contractors etc can get me. At 20.00 a month it is hard to pass up, I didn't plan on coming back to RW but they had the new phone which so far seems to have better battery life than the LG.
All in all I'm hoping for a good run this time.
Once I start using the phone daily ill start posting at the RW FB page as well to help other get a feel of what their service is like.

[AndroidFoneFan]

Well it has been a little over ten days since I started using the RW phone at work, that is not a long time and I will post updates as time goes by, but my service with them has been pretty good. Call quality on the road is fine, and have not yet had any issues with dropped calls.
The wifi calls as stated in the past have a bit of background hiss but it is not bad at all and often times I forget I'm on VOIP when I am using it that way.
I am confident that when they get their newer phones out or the BYOP I will be taking my personal phone service over to them as well.
The phone itself does everything I need for work, but I am use to a bigger screen on my personal phone these days.
Since I still don't believe any company has a perfect 10 in service I can give RW a solid 8.5, they lost the .5 for lack of MMS. 9.0 being the best they could get out of me I figure 8.5 is pretty good.