The AT&T base iPhone plan has 450 minutes, (vs. 550 cellular, unlimited wifi here) for $40 plus $5 for 250 texts plus $15 for 200 MB or $25 for 2 GB. That's a total of $60/month at minimum. I really don't see what the complaint is here.
All the articles I've seen about this provider say that the price is low because they expect to utilize WiFi for a significant proportion of calls, not supplied by Republic, but supplied by the cable or DSL provider, in my case AT&T UVerse.
The land-line equivalent of this is Magic-Jack, though Republic do at least offer CDMA, or will until they discover their customers are breaking their business model.
I have magic jack but after I initially installed it I never used it. The service is terrible and I wouldn't be surprised if they had vacuum tube mainframes and tape drives running thier repeaters. Having said that, magic jack is extremely valuable for one thing: a number I can quickly forward to any phone I please. That's why I keep the phone number. Once I need a number for people to call I can have the magic jack number listed, and simply forward it to whatever number I'm using at the time(though it won't forward internationally).
Not really. I have the number for 5 years and I don't have to pay a dime for it again until the renewal. Plus once it forwards the call it goes off their switchboard so I don't have a problem with the miserable call quality magic jack is famous for. Who knows if I'll renew(or if the company will even be in business) when the time comes but until then I've got a number anyone can call effectively for free.