Many carriers now offer some form of WiFi calling, but Republic Wireless bases its entire business model on making WiFi calls a seamless part of the experience. A new feature of Republic Wireless' hybrid MVNO network called Bonded Calling aims to improve call quality by using both WiFi and cellular data at the same time to fill in the gaps when you're stuck on a spotty WiFi network.

You may be thinking this sounds like what Republic and some other carriers already do. If you lose WiFi, a call fails over to cellular. The emphasis above gets at the core of what makes this clever. If you are on a WiFi call and the signal gets sketchy, the cellular data connection can fire up to reinforce your call. This happens in millisecond intervals with no interruption to the call. It's essentially dual VoIP streams.

Republic claims that this system has increased call quality by 52% for all connections, but it improves quality by 209% at the edge of WiFi networks where calls tend to be problematic. Bonded calling is part of Republic's "Adaptive Coverage" suite, which includes existing basics like cell-WiFi hand-offs. Republic Wireless customers don't need new phones for Bonded Calling. It's already rolling out, but the carrier hasn't said how long it will take to reach everyone.