Republic Wireless, the Sprint MVNO that offers hybrid WiFi/cellular calling, has announced its next generation of WiFi calling which they refer to as Bonded Calling.
With Bonded Calling, Republic Wireless is able to sense a problem with your calls and catch dropped calls before they ever happen through their adaptive coverage suite of technology.
Traditionally, on Republic Wireless, if a call was initiated over a WiFi network and the WiFi signal weakened, the call would be seamlessly transitioned over to Sprint's cellular network. Later, the company developed a technology to allow the reverse to happen, if you were on the cellular network with a weakening signal, your call could be transitioned over to a WiFi network without dropping the call.
Bonded Calling
With Bonded Calling, Republic Wireless can now automatically establish two simultaneous connection modes for every call. Now when you make a call over WiFi, the MVNO can automatically establish a secondary connection over your phones cellular data network and transmit yours and your other parties voices over each connection simultaneously. Now if your WiFi connection drops or loses packets, the cellular IP data connection can maintain the call or fill in the missing packets. It is important to note, the data connections used for calling, do not count against your high speed data cap.
Republic Wireless says that with Bonded calling, the MVNO will still primarily utilize whichever network provides better call quality as the primary audio source for the call.
Last, the company says that if the combined WiFI and cellular data VoIP audio streams are too weak while your on a call, the call can still be handed off over to the traditional cellular network as a safety net fallback.
About Republic Wireless
Republic Wireless is an MVNO that operates on Sprint's network. The MVNO helps save you money on your monthly phone bill, by offering service that primarily uses WiFi to place calls and texts. Plans start at $10/month for unlimited talk and text. Data containing plans start at $17.50 for 500 MB of data.
With Republic Wireless, customers can get a refund credited to their account for any unused data they may have in it at the end of their billing cycle. The average customer receives a monthly refund of $13.51.