As the topic title says:
It’s interesting to watch other providers introducing their takes on features the old Republic had years ago.
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so is this like the RW Extend Home device?
Not exactly. US Mobile’s offering is a cellular device. Extend Home was Voice over Internet Protocol and, therefore, required one to provide the Internet connection.
Also, as far as I know, US Mobile’s device requires a separate phone number. It doesn’t share its number with one’s mobile phone.
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My in-laws are considering giving up their landline.
The landline currently costs them $110 a month. 
They do not have internet service, so a VoIP service is not an option. Mom-in-law has a cell phone and does well with it, but Dad-in-law really needs the ergonomics and familiarity of a home phone handset.
I’m wondering if anyone here has given this (or one from another provider) a try.
Here’s what I need to understand before we move forward with a $90 piece of hardware and only 14 days to try it out.
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It looks like US Mobile is using their T-Mobile SIM card with the device. Does this hardware rely on the traditional (2G) voice signal, or 4G? They have a pretty weak signal at their house, with no data at times.
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Given they have such a weak signal at their house, could I expect this hardware to perform better than a cell phone, given it is (a) plugged in all the time (backup battery noted) and (b) has two antennas. (Or are they placebo antennas?
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That’s crazy!
I have not personally used one of these devices but, for what it’s worth, I believe the US Mobile home phone base is a rebadged Moxee device.
Multiple Tracfone brands (now owned by Verizon Wireless) most notably Straight Talk use Moxee devices for home phone service. Straight Talk’s specifications page says LTE only. I can’t find any specs on US Mobile’s website.
With Straight Talk, coverage would be on Verizon’s network. Straight Talk sells the device for less than US Mobile ($50) but the monthly plan is more ($30 as opposed to $10). You are correct, US Mobile’s coverage would be on T-Mobile’s network. The external antennas should help but how much they would compensate for weak coverage? 
Consumer Cellular is another option. Their device is manufactured by Verve (of whom I’ve never heard). Apparently, one selects a standard CC cell plan. The cheapest option is $20/month for unlimited talk & text plus 1 GB of data. I have no idea what one would do with data on a home phone base. Like US Mobile’s device, CC’s is $90. CC offers coverage on AT&T or T-Mobile’s network but I don’t know if that applies to the home phone base. On the plus side, CC has a reputation for expertly serving older demographics.
@Totoro has moved to CC, any insight on this?
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I don’t have information about this particular device, but I would say that Consumer Cellular’s customer service is outstanding. They are geared toward old geezers like my wife and I, they don’t have long hold times to get to an agent, and their English is impeccable. They never seem to be in a rush to get a customer off the line.
After @rolandh mentioned emergency communications the other day, I called CC and asked that one of our AT&T lines be switched to T-Mobile so that if one carrier was down, we’d still have the other. The CC agent said that they wouldn’t be able to do that, since they are heading toward just AT&T as their sole carrier. (They advertise both carriers, so I’m not sure just what that is all about.)
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We used the straight talk home phone device for years. It worked great and was $15 plus less than $1 for tax. We even took it with us on trips with a corded phone.
When they started upgrading the network and required a new device we seemed to have more issues. Maybe some initial change issues??
However we decided to transfer the number to Hello Mobile on their $5 plan and use the device(cell2jack) @BillG recommended connecting to our cordless phones using Bluetooth. Worked good but we had some minor sound issues so decided since we needed new cordless phones to get Bluetooth phones and that is the system we use now by connecting our cordless phone system via Bluetooth to the mobile phone with our original landline number and the $5 hello Mobile plan
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