T-Mobile Announces HotSpot @Home
Make free calls with your home Wi-Fi network.
Mixed in amongst the endless iPhone talk last week, NYT’s David Pogue found a different cellphone story worth writing about. In the long run, this story may create more waves in the industry than the iPhone ever could.
T-Mobile announced a new service called ‘HotSpot @Home’. The service allows you to use your home Wi-Fi network (or any Wi-Fi network, for that matter) to make calls for free without relying on T-Mobile’s cellular network.
This is an interesting play by T-Mobile. This is a unique way for them to compete with the 'larger’ networks of AT&T and Verizon. As Pogue put it, it’s like having “…a little T-Mobile cell tower right in your house.”
The most interesting part of this story to me is the apparent ability to switch from Wi-Fi to cellular networks seamlessly, even while on a call. I’d love to give this a try myself but I use a different carrier. If you have firsthand experience with this please share!
Depending on how much you use it (and thanks to some tips Pogue included in his article) you could, in theory, save hundreds of dollars a year with this service. However, there are a few caveats:
-Currently there are only two phones available that support HotSpot @Home and they’re pretty basic.-Your battery will drain significantly faster while using a Wi-Fi network.
Currently the price is $10/month, but Pogue mentions that this is an introductory rate, with the final price point set at $20/month ($30 for family plans).
Read the press release here.
Comments
I just installed T-Mobile Hotspot @Home with three phones on the family plan. Since I love technology, I tried did it the hard way. First, my goal way to get three phones and a router for free. If you look on the web you can find $50 rebates on each phone and router, then you are half way there. Then you need to find an Authorized Partner/Dealer (not a company store or company web site or big box store) to sell you Nokia 6086 phones at $50 each. After talking to quite a few stores, I found one that at least had a clue about Hotspot @Home had Nokia 6086 phones and could be talked down from $100 to $49.99 per phone (match the company store price). I couldn't find a $50 deal on the web for the Nokia 6086. So Saturday I scored, and now have to fill out four $50 rebates and wait 60 days, to be almost free (let's not count the 75 miles of driving around and sales tax). I re-uped my 2002 family plan haeaded over to the other mall because the store's other outlet had the 3rd phone. One has to be dedicated and pretend that these phones can be found anywhere.
This post is getting losg and I will cover the installtion on my next post. So far it has work as it suppose to, but not without tring every possile network arrangement and find out the right and wrong ways to install to router.
Posted by: Mark | July 22, 2007 07:31 PM