T-Mobile bringing HotSpot @Home to your landlines

T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home already brings WiFi VoIP to compatible cell phones, and the latest FCC filing from T-Mo and Linksys indicates that soon all the phones in your pad will be able to get in on the action: say hello to the WRTU54G. Apart from the T-Mobile branding and the two phone jacks on the back, the router features two user-accessible SIM card slots, which appear to be used to configure up to two phone lines -- we're not sure if they're VoIP or cell, however.

[Via TG Daily]

[Gurneet Bedi @ Aug 9th 2007 9:56AM]

Now if only T-Mobile would start rolling out the 3G network across the United States they might have a shot competing with the big guns. I still heart T-Mobile though.

[mtnview @ Aug 9th 2007 12:33AM]

this is another type of UMA service.
Product in between of WI-FI UMA phone and Femtocell.
Not a VoIP.

[SpeedRacer @ Aug 9th 2007 9:32PM]

This makes your home phones use VoIP and also supports VoIP operation for your UMA mobile phones.

UMA phones work either using 802.11 or GSM radio. When in 802.11 mode, the phone is a VoIP phone, when in GSM mode, the phone is a cell phone.

This is not a femtocell. It is a VoIP router. The cool thing is that it lets your home phones be known on the network via their own SIM cards that are held in the router.

[Jason @ Aug 9th 2007 1:36AM]

my guess is the SIM cards help make sure only those who bought the router can use it by the way of card-matching

i.e. your visiting friends won't be able to enjoy it :(

[tehpwnmstr @ Aug 9th 2007 12:33AM]

so tell me how this is supposed to give ALL my fones voip when none of them are wifii enabled? you need to word things better.

[Matt @ Aug 9th 2007 12:41AM]

tehpwnmstr, you need to READ things better. It gives your other phones VOIP by plugging them into the PHOONE JACKS on the back of this device.

[tehpwnmstr @ Aug 9th 2007 1:57AM]

i figuered those were for connecting, to the phone jack in the wall, but now that you sayt that, my theory makes no sense. thanks for clarifying. the point is to make your phone voip not your wifi phone standard RJ12. i get it now.

[norris07 @ Aug 9th 2007 1:23AM]

I just saw the commercial on tv for this it was pretty bad but said it cost 9.99 a month saying "free wifi and unlimited calling for 9.99 a month"

[Rob @ Aug 9th 2007 1:25AM]

Ok, I went through the entire manual found via the link on the picture. But, I didn't see anything about how to set up your regular phone and make it work with this router. It only says "plug your phone and/or fax unit into any of the two jacks." Ok, then what? It's not a matter of plug it in and here comes the dial tone. What am I missing here?

I'm really curious about this router because this particular phone jack feature is definitely something that a lot of people would be interested in. It could potentially kill all the voip companies out there. But, I'm sure there's more to it than just plug in your phone and presto.

Anyone who actually understand how this router functions?

[SpeedRacer @ Aug 9th 2007 9:26PM]

Those phone plugs provide dial tone and other analog signals that make your home phones work properly. (The Internet connection doesn't provide any such stuff, it's all just 1s and 0s.)

The SIM cards are how your wired phones are identified... calls made to the phone number that T-mobile gives you for your wired phone will route to this router because the SIM card ties that number to your router. (They will probably let you port your existing home number over if you want to.)

So the short answer is: "Slide in your SIM card, plug in your phone, and, indeed, presto!"

[billy bob thorton @ Aug 9th 2007 1:59AM]

I believe you got it right. tmobile doesn't want people sharing unlimited calls with everyone within range of the router. since it's designed as a home phone replacement it makes since that they include no more than 2 lines.

honestly though t-mobile needs to be working on better roaming agreements or more towers, especially in GA.

[Mark @ Aug 9th 2007 11:03AM]

I don't think the SIM cards have anything to do with preventing the neighborhood from using the router to make free phone calls. The phone ports on the back are wired so unless you are running cable to all the houses they will not be able to use it - and if you are refering to the HotSpot @Home features then unless you are running the access point with no security then those with UMA compatible handsets will be able to connect - no different from the current service.

[Rich Whiffen @ Aug 9th 2007 11:23AM]

Looks like you need a special cell phone to take advantage of this. Basically this is just your typical VOIP router, you plug a analog phone in and it converts it to VOIP. Nothin' terribly new there, T-Mobile just provides VOIP service ala Vonage. The SIM card slots are how the determine what calls to route to your router I'm guessing. The thing that makes this different is if you have one of two supported phones, the Nokia 6086 or the Samsung 1409, when your within hotspot range, it automagicaly switches to VoIP calling. When you get out of range, it switches to Cell calling. Neat. Not sure how useful it is unless you make a crap-ton (metric ton, not imperial ton) of calls that would otherwise exhaust your cell plan minutes. I believe this is why they have the SIM card slots on this router. That way the VoIP land lines log into the t-mobile net the same way your roaming cell phone does, one ring to rule them all.

[NokiaFanatic @ Aug 9th 2007 1:32PM]

OK...some people dont understand this concept. The sim slots in the router will allow any phone plugged into the back of the router to make calls. Now I am not sure if it will be via GPRS or internet based calling (my guess will be internet based). This will alow those with the @Home service to use their cell phones AS WELL AS all of their current wired home phones. but instead of using a local telephone company who has wires running up to your house, you will now be able to insert a sim card into the router and use that as a land line type company to your home phones. You of course, will have to have an active sim card, which on a family time plan will only be 9.99/month. And with the ability to have 2 seperate sim cards, some business/homes require 2 phone lines for busioness purposes or if they have teenagers who NEED their own line (granted most teens just use a cell now-a-days).

This wiull not ring all phones at once!! Lets try this. Lets say you have 4 Nokia 6086's all have the @home service. now take 2 of the sims, put them into the router and hook up a wired home phone to the router. those 2 wired home phones are now the same numbers as what was in the 6086's. This will beneifit families who try to convert soley to cell phones, but need a home phone for lets say a baby sitter is watching the kids. since both parents take their personal cel phones with, the babysitter would be out a phone (unless of course they had a cell) So now they take a activated sim for only 9.99 on a family plan, and plug a home phone into it, and they are all set to go to have a home phone at home, using @home service!

[Raj Seshadri @ Aug 9th 2007 4:55PM]

NF,
Use http://grandcentral.com to solve the multi-ring problem. You'll need an invite, but most digerati have one or you can wait for them to hand one out to you.

[djayden @ Aug 9th 2007 5:08PM]

Okay. so I don't want to go with Time Warner or Charter for an internet/ wifi solution. My neighborhoods wifi's suck. And I'm developing a severe caffeine addiction. As a current Tmobile user is this going to solve my internet problem. The phones are an added plus. Or do I already need to have wifi?

[SpeedRacer @ Aug 9th 2007 9:11PM]

I think the SIM cards are how your wired phones will get service.

UMA was designed for mobile phones, and the SIM cards in these phones define their identity in the network. So this is how the network know to route your number to the cell tower you're nearest to.

If you have a UMA-capable cell phone, when in range of this device (or any other open hot spot) your phone will register to the network that calls should now route through the Internet rather than over the cellular network.

In order to make this work for wired phones, you will need a SIM card in the router. That's why there are 2 phone line ports and two SIM slots; one for each. The SIM in the router tells the T-Mobile network to route calls to your 'wired' number to this router over the Internet. T-Mobile provides the phone number to these wired phone ports.

So, basically, the router contains up to two 'dummy' cell phones that actually use your wired phones as the audio input/output devices, and the router provides a dial tone and all the other required signaling to these wired phone ports.