For lack of a better answer: probably not. Republic is a subsidiary of Bandwidth.com which is where Google Voice gets their minutes from (along with Skype and

For lack of a better answer: probably not. Republic is a subsidiary of Bandwidth.com which is where Google Voice gets their minutes from (along with Skype and most of the rest of the SIP world). There are a number of problems with Republic's plan, but the primary one is one that Google should have a much easier time solving. When Republic was launching, the critical necessity for their launch was the receipt of their Cyanogen modded handsets. These devices are different in a couple ways: 1) They will always auto-hop onto WiFi 2) They will always try to route via SIP first The practical problem is that SIP over GSM/3G is not very good sounding even when you use G.729 (when you're coming over the top). Google has a chance to beat this part as they can make a much tighter integration (one wonders what could be tighter than the built-in SIP stack, but I digress). COULD google come in and have a grand time in the wireless market? Yes. Will they risk alienating their carrier partners (their top distribution channel)? Probably not. To my mind, this is just another Google infrastructure play that makes sense for a whole variety of reasons, but I don't think it will serve as the basis for GoogleMobile. For one thing, this wifi network simply isn't large enough to support a carrier, imho.