The big issue with Republic is that they are on Sprint's native network which is pretty dismal.
Unless you never leave metro areas it's best to avoid Sprint MVNOs since they have no roaming, as well as avoiding T-Mobile. Certainly in the western U.S. you would not want to rely on Sprint native coverage since they have huge gaps. On Sprint itself you get off-network roaming.
What is NFR? Do you mean NFC?
Unfortunately the lower-cost Android phones lack NFC, you're looking at around $125 minimum for NFC .
Wrong. All GSM phones have SIM cards. CDMA phones typically did not. My TracFone is CDMA since I live in Verizon territory and does not have a SIM. My Verizon MiFi does have a SIM but that is because of the 4G LTE, not the CDMA.
Sprint had a habit of soldering in GSM SIM cards in their "world" phones (CDMA/GSM) so you had to roam in Europe through Sprint at high prices rather than inserting a prepaid SIM purchased in the country you were visiting.
Tracfone's BYOP SIM card is actually two SIM cards, one for Verizon, one for AT&T. You choose the one that is for the phone you are bringing with you and discard the other one.
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