T-Mobile integrates w/Wi-Fi

This is very compelling, not just because it can be a
money-saver, and not just because it seems like a brilliant strategic
move on T-Mobile's part, but because it goes a long way toward solving
a serious problem for those of us who travel to Japan, and helps
international travelers in general.

http://tinyurl.com/322y7r

DGI

On 2007-07-06, David G Imber <imber@maniform.com> wrote:
> This is very compelling, not just because it can be a
> money-saver, and not just because it seems like a brilliant strategic
> move on T-Mobile's part, but because it goes a long way toward solving
> a serious problem for those of us who travel to Japan, and helps
> international travelers in general.

Yeah, this is huge.

I have my cordless and WiFi on 2.4 GHz and my T-Mobile cell phone on 1.9
GHz. I have problems in the back of my house... not outside, get a signal
fine there, not in front of the house, just the family room and (primarily)
the master bedroom. And I'm supposed to receive pages on my call phone in
the middle of the night if stuff goes down, which is less likely to happen
with an unusable signal.

Cool thing is, the parts of my house where the cell signal is weakest, are
the parts where the wifi signal is strongest. :)

At 06 Jul 2007 05:06:48 +0000 Steve Sobol wrote:


> Cool thing is, the parts of my house where the cell signal is weakest,
are
> the parts where the wifi signal is strongest. :)


Which brings up an interesting point- you don't have to be on a "Hotspots
@ Home" plan to use this service. You can simply buy one of the Wi-Fi
phones and use it with your current plan. The only difference is the Wi-
Fi calls aren't "free"- they're billed like any other cellular call (uses
your minutes, free weekends, whatever.) For those seeing this more for
it's coverage enhancing abilty than for free calling, NOT taking the $10-
20/month add-on plan might be the preferable way to go.




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"Todd Allcock" wrote:
>
> For those seeing this more for
> it's coverage enhancing abilty than for free calling, NOT taking the $10-
> 20/month add-on plan might be the preferable way to go.

Hey whatever helps this concept get legs is great. If it works as
advertised, I love it.

And like the article said if you use your phone with WiFi a lot you could
possibly lower the calling plan, so that even with the HotSpot @Home fee you
still are saving.

I was also impressed that this system actually hands off in-progress calls
from/to WiFi. That's pretty neat.

Only downside is you can't use WLANs that use browser-based authentication
(though I would imagine that wouldn't be hard to implement using the phone's
browser).

I'm hoping this concept catches on. A shame the iPhone doesn't have it.



--
Mike

At 06 Jul 2007 08:04:00 -0700 Tinman wrote:

> And like the article said if you use your phone with WiFi a lot you
> could possibly lower the calling plan, so that even with the
> HotSpot @Home fee you still are saving.


True, but I'm a "MyFaves" customer (free calls to/from 5 numbers) now,
and leave 800 minutes/month "on the table" as it is! I don't need anymore
"free" time even for $10!

> I was also impressed that this system actually hands off in-progress
calls
> from/to WiFi. That's pretty neat.


Yeah- apparently it's not VoIP- it uses a newer protocol (UMA?) so it's
esentially "GSM over IP." Most beta testers were impressed with the
quality.

> Only downside is you can't use WLANs that use browser-based
> authentication (though I would imagine that wouldn't be hard to
> implement using the phone's browser).

Seems like a glaring ommission, and is, unfortunately the deal-breaker
for me at this time. I get good reception at home now, but would love
this for hotel rooms with free Wi-Fi and lousy cell reception. Currently
I use VoIP and conditional call forwarding for those scenarios, but would
love the simplicity of @home instead.

I might buy one of the Nokias just for the "gee-whiz" of it anyway.


> I'm hoping this concept catches on. A shame the iPhone doesn't have it.

It's a bigger shame T-Mo chose "iPhone week" to announce it. Heck, we
could've been invaded by extra-terrestrials last week and it'd have been
the number-two story on the news! ;-)




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Does anybody know if Verizon Wireless (or any other carrier) is
planning on doing the same kind of thing as T-mobile? (Hotspot @ Home)

At 15 Jul 2007 00:12:21 +0000 mclopez@gmail.com wrote:
> Does anybody know if Verizon Wireless (or any other carrier) is
> planning on doing the same kind of thing as T-mobile? (Hotspot @ Home)

Current indusrty speculation is no- Hotspot@Home is ostensibly designed
to get you to ditch your home phone service in favor of free at home
calling over Wi-Fi. Since AT&T & Verizon are owned by the two largest
landline telcos, it's unlikely they'd introduce a service that drives
their own customers away from their core business.

In Sprint's case, I assume they intend to wait until they launch WiMax
before going to a VoIP type of service.




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