Unlimited

Submitted by brian on
In our blog post last week, we took an affirmative position on the question “Is republic wireless really unlimited?” and laid out the fair use policies we had established to support our $19 monthly price. A dynamic and spirited discussion ensued, which we were flattered to see! In response, we have a big announcement to share.

From today, republic wireless is all-in.

We see Big Cell’s stance, and are raising the standard to create something radically better. We’re eliminating all usage thresholds, and with them the concern some of you have expressed about losing your membership for maintaining too large a cellular footprint.

This is what being in beta is really all about. We’re here to learn and innovate or fail trying. And as we’ve said before, we’re not here to sell you but to build a new wireless business together with you. You helped us realize that we didn’t get this right on our first try with the CUI, that we can and should do better.

Some of your feedback about our CUI concept and fair use thresholds ranged from confusion to extreme criticism, with a wide variety of thoughts and suggestions in between. Some judged our marketing to be “deceptive.” Others felt our concepts were just too complicated, and unnecessary to expose to end users. There has been much debate about how to quantify an apparent “cap”... and whether it was accurate to characterize our policy as one. Many sought further clarification from us about details, corrections, tools and further illustrations.

Some of you advised that we just step back from being “unlimited.” The incumbents, for their part, have by and large given up on the idea. Confronted with the economics and physics of expensive, scarce cellular, and seeing profit potential in the burgeoning market for smartphones, Big Cell has employed usage caps, price increases and controls. Now republic wireless is no incumbent, and this is not the direction we are going.

Rather than revising our fair use policy, we’ve decided not to have one at all. There will simply be no thresholds, and no risk of losing service. We’re doing away with all of that to keep all of the focus instead on where it really belongs: Creating a new wireless future together. A future that is simple to understand, unfettered to use, and an amazing value for all. That’s what we started down this path to do. That’s where the power of this vibrant community, dynamic Wi-Fi ecosystem and revolutionary technology should be invested. We’re all-in.

Our shift today is because you said that our fair use policy didn’t meet the standard republic wireless was created to meet. We agree. We pledge allegiance to Wi-Fi and have a more audacious vision that shouldn’t require a fair use policy or a strained definition of unlimited. As I wrote in our first blog post about CUI, “The Internet sets a higher standard for the term [unlimited].... That’s the one we aspire to meet.”

Our product focus during beta is on building new features and tools to discover how to make unlimited work at this radical price point. We have some ideas in progress already and on our roadmap, and we will want to hear not only your reaction to those, but your ideas too.

At least in the short term, we’ll leave the usage charting tool (including the CUI graph) in place.  We plan to update the “What’s the Catch?” page on our website so it’s unequivocally in line with our new and improved “unlimited” position. The fair use policy will be removed, and our terms of service revised.

As part of that legal amendment, everyone who has purchased or purchases a phone during beta will be guaranteed the opportunity to enjoy unlimited service, without fear of cancellation, until the end of beta. We won’t end beta until we either achieve economic sustainability or become convinced that doing so is impossible. In the event that we end beta with a decision to abandon or change our unlimited offering, we’ll give you the option of canceling for a full refund for your device at that time.

Our current terms of service do presently include certain “unacceptable use" clauses that are separate and distinct from the fair use policy. These provisions address use cases in which people attempt to resell our service or leave the phone “always on” as a conduit for other uses obviously beyond what would be normal for a personal smartphone. We’ll soon be re-evaluating those provisions too.

We’re excited about the conversation we’re having together during the beta. We realize we got it wrong and look forward to improving as we work together to realize common republic wireless goals. Please comment below, discuss in the forum and as I’ve invited before, I particularly enjoy hearing from you at brian@republicwireless.com.

Comments

Holy Cow

Really? Thanks for the early Christmas present. I'm still going to be responsible about usage, but this means I breathe easier.

Hmm

I'm not sure that everyone will be so honorable with their usage. I can see a scenario where alot of people just sign on with RW to take advantage of the nice price and basically ignore the fact that the economic viability of this venture is based on the decreased overhead costs of cellular network usage. I fear that having no method of driving most usage to WiFi, be it positive or negative, will put the economic viability of RW very much into question. I'm not sure what the solution to this looks like, but there should be something soon. A truly unlimited plan that is so cheap, with absolutely no strings attached, is a dream for consumers but seems to be built on shaky ground as far as the economics are concerned. I hope I'm wrong.

Great concept, but some kind of control is necessary!!!!

iahawki wrote:

I'm not sure that everyone will be so honorable with their usage. I can see a scenario where alot of people just sign on with RW to take advantage of the nice price and basically ignore the fact that the economic viability of this venture is based on the decreased overhead costs of cellular network usage. I fear that having no method of driving most usage to WiFi, be it positive or negative, will put the economic viability of RW very much into question. I'm not sure what the solution to this looks like, but there should be something soon. A truly unlimited plan that is so cheap, with absolutely no strings attached, is a dream for consumers but seems to be built on shaky ground as far as the economics are concerned. I hope I'm wrong.

I could not agree more with this, while I applaud the restrictions going out the window, I think some stuff should still be put into play - perhaps putting in some wireless access points "back door" with software updates - that will help offset some of the people that are simply not willing to go wifi - with the backdoor updates, we wouldn't have a choice. now i know there aren't that many unsecured networks out there, but if you put in the default SSID for such devices as linksys or other "home" routers - or some of the devices that appear to be in the wifi forum, it may be hit or miss, but at least it gives RW a fighting chance to survive - every little bit of wifi access will help, i'm certain!

I must admin, i was actually scared to use my phone outside of my house because i don't take a lot of calls while at home, and my footprint would be way out of balance, but since this news, i will not be afraid to use it - i do have a question - i thought i read that texts were cheapest, data was next and cell minutes were the most expensive - is this true? and if so, maybe we could get something like the SMOZZY android app that was created for tmobile - surf the internet over text messages - while it may not be super fast, for those of us that actually care about the survival of this business model, we could do our part to help offset!
also, if data is truly cheaper than voice, i have an app called Groove IP - which should let me make calls over the data network rather than use cell minutes, i haven't tried the app yet, but this could also be a possible solution to help offset

Agreed

Agreed. I think the fact that we were drawn to this idea shows that we are willing to work to offload a lot onto wifi.

But if I don't have some kind of graph to be proud of how much I wifi'ed, then I probably won't worry about it much.

It's like those thermometer things you see when donating stuff -- it's exciting to watch it, and keeps your head in the game.

CUI Tool

scoutconnor wrote:

And let me add, I'd love to be able to keep the CIU tool alive as it is interesting to see how I'm doing compared with others.

I would like to see this also

I Hope

That's my understanding of it... but my understanding of it was flawed to begin with. I do appreciate at least one Cell company offering truly, unequivocally UNLIMITED everything. the thing that drew me in was the $19 price point. I have no issue with tiered pricing and some limits.. the thing that bothered me with my verizon service is that i was paying $50 for voice and text (which i barely use) and $30 for "unlimited" (5GB) of which i rarely used more than 1.5-2GB... If needed for financial sustainability i will pay more. i would comfortably pay up to $30/line for what i primarily use as a data device with a smattering of voice minutes.

GREAT!!!

GREAT Christmas news... well, great news, in general!!!

Still waiting to join!!! When? When? When?

Hmm

Honestly this is actually a bit worrisome to me. It seemed like the only way Republic could afford to charge such low fees was because their cellular costs were so low thanks to incentives to use wi-fi more than cell data. With that incentive gone, why would people use less cell data now and thus how can you keep your costs down and charge less than every other company?

Self-reply

In thinking about it, I guess the idea is to only do no strings unlimited for beta, and then once you understand how much people use wifi/cell data, switch back to the original plan. I just don't see this as financially feasible long term otherwise.

I agree. But, "how much

I agree. But, "how much people use" is strongly influenced by whether its unlimited or capped-- and even if you know one it doesn't help much in estimating the other. Well, that's why entrepreneurs can make big bucks, well deserved. If they survive, that is.

I see a couple of big reasons

I see a couple of big reasons:

1. In building cellular can be spotty and Wifi signals tend to be stronger. So, you should get a better call if you are on Wifi.
2. 3G is slower than Wifi.

Counter point

Many have reported call quality is substantially better over cell. I haven't used cell enough to know, but I suppose now I will use it more...

That may currently be the

That may currently be the case for some, but theoretically you should be able to get a better call on Wifi. Now, that all depends upon the bandwith that the Wifi connection has, but generally speaking public Wifi is usually fast enough that the call quality should be just as good or better. Now, currently RW may be having issues with their servers or software that is degrading the quality for some users, but these will be addressed if they do exists I am sure.

Bold! (and clear)

Great news. Reaffirms my faith in the republic!

Brian, I hope that you, Tim, Jessica, Tiggs, Bronc, and all the rest of your team have a Merry (perhaps even restful?) Christmas.

During Bets

Having re-read this post like three times (jaw on floor) the removal of the cap is only for the beta right now right?

the cap is removed, period

Haha. Indeed. During the beta, yes, but not just as some experiment. That's what we intend to make work and demonstrate commercially during the beta... then launch generally available to the public.

This is amazing on Republic Wireless' part...

...but I want to encourage people not to abuse the privilege. We want Republic Wireless to thrive and succeed! I will do my best to offload 70-90% of my usage on WiFi, and I will also try to stay within a now completely self-imposed cellular "cap" of 600MB. I understand that this is not a possibility for some, and, knowing that I am a low end user, I want to make sure that the Republic can accommodate the high-end user as well and still stay lucrative. Good luck to us all in this experiment, and thanks Republic Wireless Team

good for you

You are the type of customer that "gets it" that should be here. Unfortunately I doubt everyone, or even the majority of users, will self police in this way. They've got to implement something that will encourage users to keep with the theme of RW's service. We cannot simply rely on users to do the right thing without either an incentive or a negative consequence, unless they go with some sort of a tiered system. Maybe users that want to be held to a CUI can have the service at $20 a month and customers that have truly unlimited without an expectation of much wifi use can pay $30-40 a month. Just throwing ideas out there.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Great news! I am committed to seeing this work and will use wi-fi as often as possible. But this takes the worry out of special circumstances where there is no choice of wi-fi.
Lets ALL be responsible in our usage! This is a great service they are providing. Lots of hard work goes into making this happen. They deserve not to be taken advantage off.
Very great-full to be a Beta tester.

i like android phones, but

i like android phones, but this LG is kinda slow, the hardware itself is pretty solid, the case is good, but once republic wireless has a high end android, republic wireless will get even more famous.

Worrisome

This worries me, because now the incentive to use wifi is basically eliminated and, in fact, reversed. I can get better battery life by just turning the wifi off and do everything via the Sprint towers, and stop worrying about the "hassle" of configuring wifi networks. There was nothing wrong with the original plan; just the language that claimed it was "unlimited" when it was really "unlimited on wifi" with a fairly generous cell-based backup allowance.

Ditto

Unlimited is dangerous, business-wise. Maybe it would have been better to simply say that you would not enforce the CUI limits for now, except in the most extreme circumstances. At least there would still be some tiny incentive to not go nuts on usage. I guess it is too late now but I wonder, what's to prevent abuses such as tethering?

Between the lines

Which is pretty much what I got from the blog post. CUI will still exist and users will be made aware, but nobody will be kicked off the service for overages during the beta. This is actually how things always were before now, just not well communicated.

CUI Should always remain.

So that we can all have a stake in the company, I recommend leaving the CUI page intact forever. And explain to all "members" that the better they keep the CUI low, the more likely this great plan has to succeed. Make the whole program run almost like an employee owned entity, only instead of employees, stress the benefits of membership. Now that I have one phone, my only real statement would be "keep up the good work and make it possible for me to get 3 more ASAP. Thank you, Brian and everyone else at RW.

Brian, I hope you're not giving up on Republic...

I am excited and a little worried at the same time. With the CUI in place, it gives us, as users, a goal to shoot for. It'll make us check to make sure we're using WiFi as much as possible. With this "no limit" strategy, it seems like you're inviting data hogs to abuse the service. I hope this isn't a first step towards throwing in the towel, I really hope you guys can turn a profitable business with this model.

I want Republic to succeed, even if it means paying $40 or $50 a month for a higher usage allotment it'd be better for everyone. I want to see this come out of Beta so I can drop Big Red all together, but I don't want to see you guys "fail trying." I encourage you to do it: make it work.

goals and targets, yes

Goals and targets, supported with information and tools, are one thing. Caps, limits and other sticks are another. republic will do the former, but not the latter. With the Wi-Fi ecosystem at our side, we don't think a $40-50 is at all necessary.

Heck no, we are not throwing in the towel!

Rock on

Brian, agreed. Goals and targets are much better than caps. Thanks for the clarification :) I look forward to seeing what you and the rest of the crew at RW will produce!

Thanks but......

I liked the idea of people being responsible with their cell usage and using wifi most of the time. It takes time to find wireless networks (or more importantly create them) to keep your cell usage down. I want RW to be around for a long time. To me unlimited cell means lazy users over time. I don't want to be penalized in the long run (i.e. no more RW) or subsidize others who don't share the same community standards of care

Wow, Impressive

I think we should keep the CUI running and maybe have a small incentives "tshirts, cups, keychains" for the ones that never ran over 200 for that month during BETA. Ideals?

Very concerned this could kill it.

I didn't get in on beta unfortunately, but as far as I could tell the CUI thresholds seemed almost reasonable for the "I never use WiFi" case so I assume that it only got better when using WiFi as much as possible. I am very concerned the unlimited cell/3G access will make the whole idea of RW infeasible at economical prices. This concept was the crux of the brilliant concept and I'm not sure there's much left of the concept except the (invalid) assumption that most people will "do the right thing" rather than "the easy thing".

Agreed that CUI seemed complex with quite a bit of "trust us" involved. But that seemed partially to be a problem with documenting/explaining it rather than the actual concept. Actually, this weakness in user docs is something I posted about before and got slapped around by others here "because this was just beta" -- perhaps this lack of documentation helped make CUI seem too complex even to beta users and could contribute to killing the entire service in the end? If so, very sad.

My big problem w/the CUI concept was that it seemed somewhat inflexible for extended "emergencies" that occasionally spring up every few years during life (such as being thrust into being lead "coordinator" for a sick family member for a couple months requiring a lot of air time w/o WiFi in unusual environments) that could get you kicked out of RW or send you scrambling to buy a prepay and carry two phones for that period at a time when you are least able to deal with that.

I was hoping for a solution for occasional emergencies - perhaps across multiple dimensions.

Perhaps one dimension of the solution would have been along the lines of a "credit bank account". Every month a user kept their service in good standing they would get credits for being "under CUI limits" and these credits could be used to compensate for occasional over usage of the cell network. Perhaps these credits would be 25% of their "under usage" for each month. Perhaps those credits would expire after 18 months. Perhaps the minimum withdrawal from the "bank" would be 10% of the assets (i.e., one minute over, it would cost you 10% of your credit bank - keeping people careful). I've not played with the numbers much, but it seems something would be helpful along these lines. Users would be motivated to keep usage under CUI limits to keep their "credit accounts" as "full" as feasible in case something came up in the future but it would reduce the "fear factor" substantially. This would also reward users who stayed with the program and strongly urge them early in their membership to work hard to use WiFi (as their "credits" account would be empty at the start) as much as possible and get used to doing so and make it a way of life.

Perhaps another dimension of the solution would have been to roll over to a plan where "per minute/byte" charges applied once a user's credit bank ran dry and usage exceeded CUI limits. This plan would be fairly expensive, but the user would automatically revert to the regular RW plan in the first month their usage was under CUI limits again.

Hoping it all works out, but I fear it won't once the factors that "strongly encourage" people to use WiFi go away. Frankly, I'm not sure with the elimination of the CUI club that I'd bother to even _try_ to get corporate IT to allow such access via WiFi on our corporate network -- it would be a big hassle to convince them to do so and it probably would not be successful even though they are quite flexible as big corporations go. (Obviously I wouldn't be willing to keep engaging in an RSA key challenge/response multiple times a day as my WiFi access was lost - it's annoying enough with my laptop!)

(Although, it appeared likely that the CUI ratios could be gamed easily to get a lot of cell voice/data allotment without violating CUI so it probably would have needed tweaking to control that. I'll leave it up to the readers to figure out how -- most of whom came to the same conclusion I did while reading the policy the first time!)

(Okay, obviously I would not be the person who should write the "better clearer docs"!)

The problem wasn't better, clearer docs...

The problem wasn't better, clearer docs, but needing docs at all. We're building a revolutionary service that shouldn't need explication. What to do and how should be self-evident and super-easy.

Your ideas for building credit are great! We probably should create rewards for members who manage their usage well over time, essentially feeding the community. Thanks for continuing to contribute and supporting us.

Incentive

Well, I know for me the incentive is speed and signal. Oddly, also battery life. If I turn off the cellular while in range of wifi my phone battery life triples. Also, I really want this company to succeed, so intend of using as much wifi as possible.

But I do worry about the economic sustainability. I'll be pissed if a few 'data hogs' ruin the economic viability of this.

It'll be fun

It'll be fun to figure out how to deal with all the data hogs, now that we're committed to keeping them around. :)

Any ideas we should start considering? 

If the plan is unlimited

If the plan is unlimited there is no such thing as a data hog. Or put the other way, anything you would do to "deal with the data hog" shows your plan to NOT be unlimited. In some respects you are setting yourselves into a unresolvable contradiction.

For the record, I think it was just fine the way it was. I'm sure it will fit my profile!

Cheers,
John

Rollover cellular minutes?

I agree that going unlimited is a over reaction. I would suggesting getting outside of the box of having to use one word to describe something. Solve your problem by using two words; Virtually Unlimited.

You have a good product, and it is guaranteed to catch and explode, becasue wi-fi is just about everywhere. Several cities are looking into making wi-fi available throughout the city utilizing the existing power lines. Additionally, more and more businesses are making free wi fi available. Our business environment is a "Monkey see, Monkey do industry." Wi fi will be available at almost every fast food restaurant chain in the country...did you witness the spread of the dollar menu?? The same thing will happen with wi-fi. It will also happen in the hotel industry adn on buses and trains as well. Wi fi will be everywhere in 5 years!!! Mobile hot spots will become more affordable also. You have agreat product adn a great price. The mistake was calling it unlimited. Call it Virtually Unlimited, and keep moving.

Simple solution....let the cellular minutes allowed be based on a percentage of usage. For instance, if 10% of your calls are on wi fi, you have maybe 100 cellular minutes. If 50% of your calls are on wi fi, you have 500 minutes. If 80% of your calls are on Wi-fi, you have 800 minutes. Therefore, your usage is "Virtually Unlimited" provided you use wi fi primarily. It probably needs to be polished a bit, but that is clear, simple and fair!

Offering something that sounds too good to be true is bad marketing...Unlimited everything for $19, sounds too good to be true and a lot of people will avoid it. But Virtually Unlimited Everything for $19 per month, piques the curiosity and promotes further exploration. what will be found is a policy that is Clear, Simple adn Fair...and virtually unlimited

Make the definition of "data hog" more straightforward

Now I don't have service yet, and haven't used any of the website/account tools, but I found the blog postings and mathematics defining "CUI" obtuse until I got out my own calculator to find out what the "data hog threshold" was.

600MB.

What's so complicated about simply stating that 600MB on 3G is the "data hog threshold" and that you're truly unlimited on WiFi?

600MB is your monthly 3G budget: use it for voice, data or texts. Presumably RW's business plan allows for every user to consume their allocation and still make money (or they wouldn't have picked that number.)

Now if you want to get "fancy":

Build in some flexibility by defining the 600MB/month budget as an bandwidth limit averaged over some time period (eg, a monthly-sampled running average since joining the service.)

Build in lower-use incentives by rewarding parsimonious users and rolling over their unused 3G bandwidth allocation to the following month.

Build in higher-use disincentives by warning those over-budget that, even though they've exceeded their 600MB/month average since joining, they have until the end of some time period (quarter, year, decade, % of membership life - your choice) to bring their usage back below an average of 600MB/month. If that means cutting back, going to WiFi only, or just hanging up the phone, so be it: it's up to the user to figure out.

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