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Republic Wireless kills the caveats, makes its service truly unlimited

Republic Wireless kills the caveats, makes its service truly unlimited

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Startup Republic Wireless has revised its stance on fair use and has removed the limitations that covered its "unlimited" plan.

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When Republic Wireless introduced its primarily Wi-Fi-based cell service (which falls back on Sprint when you're away from home or the office), a lot of you were quick to point out that the "unlimited" offering wasn't quite as liberating as it seemed. Rather than being truly limitless, customers' usage would be compared to the average and consistently heavy users would eventually be "helped to join other carriers." Republic has now rethought this fair use policy, and in a blog post has announced that unlimited now actually means unlimited. Although the usage indicator remains in place to help users understand how many minutes, messages, and megabytes they're using, and to encourage more activity over Wi-Fi, there's no penalty for being an active user. This is great news for potential customers, and it's likely that the move was prompted by confusion or distrust of the usage limits.

A slightly ominous question mark does remain in place over the service, though. The post says that the unlimited offering will remain in place for beta users until either "we either achieve economic sustainability or become convinced that doing so is impossible." So while for now, the $19 monthly plan might seem like a deal you'll stick with, don't expect it to be there forever if Republic can't make the numbers work.