SIGN UP TO RECEIVE THE LATEST POSTS VIA EMAIL!T-Mobile Hotspot @Home Review
December 6, 2007
I spend a lot of time fooling around with Voice Over IP (VoIP), which as most of you know, is a technology that allows you to place and recieve phone calls over the internet for a cheaper rate than the standard phone sytem (PSTN). Usually they offer unlimited plans so you no longer have to worry about long distance calls since they are included, similiar to cell phones these days. Using VoIP is seamless. You use your current phone just like you did before, to the average person you really can’t tell the difference as the sound quality is very good and the way you dial and receive calls is exactly the same.
I have used Vonage, Broadvoice, VoicePulse, Teliax and IConnectHere. All of them have worked but have had their quirks. I have experienced outages with all of them at least once, wich can be frustrating since you are paying for a monthly service.
I started reading up on a service that T-Mobile was offering called Hotspot @Home. The Hotspot @ Home Service is an addon to your current cell phone plan which lets you make calls from your cell phone over a WiFi router, similiar to that of VoiP, but using a different technology called UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access).
The phones can switch between a wifi router and the cell towers without dropping the call. This is great since when you are near a wifi router the router acts as your signal strength, so if you have a wifi router at home, that calls from anywhere in your home are possible, even your basement. Then as you leave your house, the call will automatically switch to the cell towers without you or the person on the other end of the line noticing it. The reverse is true as well as you near a wifi router that you have setup on your phone, the call will switch from the cell towers to the wifi router seamlessly.
With the Hotspot @Home plan, any call that originates over a wifi router is free, regardless if it switches over to a cell tower during the call. Can you imagine the possibilities here with the abundance of wifi out there these days? You can also use any of T-Mobile’s Hotspots (Starbucks, FedEx Kinko’s, etc) to place free calls. The phone will automatically detect them and connect. This is a free service offered to those that have the Hotspot @ Home plan. The best part about this is that you could technically sit outside a starbucks, make a call over the wifi router, drive away while the call switched to the towers and the entire call will be free!! So even on the go, you can find a way to make free calls.
Currenty there are only 4 Phones that work with the service as you need a dual mode GSM/Wifi phone which supports UMA. The plan is an additional $19.99 addon to your current cellphone plan. But for all the free calls I definetly this this is worth it. All the phones have the ability for you to add a secured wireless router that uses WEP, WPA, etc, so you can use your own wifi router at home. T-Mobile does offer a HotSpot @Home router as an accessory if you currently don’t have a wireless router.
I signed up for the plan 2 months ago and bought the Blackberry Curve. I love it. I have a wifi router at home and at work, which is where I make most of my calls, I barely put a dent in my available minutes!!! I have currently dropped my home phone as well as Vonage, which I was starting to become very unhappy with. So I am saving around $25 per month and I now only have one phone number. No more “Can you call me on my home number so I don’t use minutes?”, all my calls at home are free! The biggest plus for me is that before my T-Mobile coverage at home as very weak, now with this plan, I get full signal at home through my router. The calls are very clear and I have not had a service outage yet. The customer support is very helpful with questions regarding setup/issues as well.
So as a recap, I would definetly recomend this service to anyone that wants to consolidate phone plans as well as makes a lot of calls from their cell phone. I no longer have overages on my cell phone account and am saving money at the same time!
Get the BlackBerry Curve Hotspot @ Home Phone for $99 @ Wirefly.com!
[...] after 2 months trying out T-Mobile’s Hotspot @Home (my review), I decided to drop Vonage. Since most everyone already knows my cell phone number, losing my [...]
[...] in December I did a quick review on T-Mobile’s Hotspot @Home (now called HotSpot@Home Talk Forever Mobile Add-on) service [...]
[...] clear and I hardly ever use minutes anymore since most of my calls are wifi calls. (See my original Hotspot @Home Review Post for more [...]
Very well written and you covered it all. Two things from my perspective. One is have to buy a new phone for it to work and the second one is even bigger that T-Mobile does not have solid coverage at my housel. Had Nextel and it didn’t either so I had to switch to AT&T which I don’t like but it does work. Like you I have tried a lot of different options of VoIP providers from the free to the paid. None of them worked well enough to keep me as a user or customer. Recently became part of a program that provides excellent voice quality just like a call on the PSTN but it is VoIP, plus all the features I need included. Even better I can send a text message to the server and call China from my cell phone for around 2 cents per minute. On top of saving money they also have a way to earn money and the potential is off the charts.
Again you put a great post together. thanks
Scotts last blog post..Cut Your Expenses
Be afraid, be very afraid. I signed up for this service in July, 2008. It appeared to work alright w/ some outages until January, 2009 when it was down for minutes, hours, days. When the problem occurs it requires you to reset your router each and every time. It was so bad I had to set up a surge protector under my desk, so I could simply use my foot to turn the router on and off, on and off, on and off…. When I called to complain, t-mobile told me they were not aware of this problem, well to be frank they are liars. There are postings all over the place, including their own forum on how unreliable this service really is.
They sent me a new router, knowing full well this wouldn’t solve the problem – the problem was I believed them. Why wouldn’t I, I had VOIP for years from other providers with no real problems. Well – same problems. You are on the phone and all of sudden the person on the other end cannot hear you – reset the router. You call them back or they call you and it drops again – reset the router. You do it a few more times – same thing. Like I said it may be minutes but more likely hours and in the end days at a time. It also takes your internet service with it. Linksys forum also has many postings, look up “no blue light”.
So I call again – told my case was closed – really, no one called to see if it was working. Told you have to start at the lower level customer service all over again. Email CEO, get call from executive response team. Now they are angry, combative, abusive and threatening – yes, threatening to “investigate” my phone calls or how I use my phone – I told them – have at it. Their executive response person Beckett spoke over me continually – actually yelling at me. I told her I did not want any more contact with her – find someone else. Oh – did I mention she thought it was funny I had this kind of phone service. Even though the phone continually disconnected while I was speaking with her – she tried to claim it wasn’t their problem and they still expected me to pay the bill. Anyway, Beckett had the audacity to keep calling me and I told her emphatically not to call. She said she would continue to call – oh, really – had to inform her this was harassment in writing. Then someone else called but the call kept dropping and they didn’t call back.
Senior tech Kevin calls and told me he had the same issue, but it wasn’t as bad these days – not as bad – are you kidding me! He was supposed to come to me and bring a new router – well he never showed up. Then a letter from t-mobile they are terminating my service and keeping my activation fees, the money for phones and equipment, but we still want you to pay the balance on your bill or we won’t release your number. Keep in mind I paid all along, believing they were honestly attempting to fix the problem – because they said so – like I said – LIARS. In April when the service became unbearable, leaving me without my internet service – I told them I would pay when they fixed the problem – therefore I was disputing my bill. American consumers have to stop being doormats – we have let this happen. Not me – not anymore. I reported them to the FCC, BBB, AG and small claims. An important fact is that you cannot call 911 should you need to when you have no service or it disconnects every minute. Well at least that would get the cops here, since they would figure we were making prank calls to 911. Totally disgraceful company.