T-Mobile @Home gets friendly with your home phone

Still really attached to that landline phone? Seriously? That's cool, we still love you, and T-Mobile still wants your business. Following a few months of trials, the T-Mobile HotSpot @Home Talk Forever service has mercifully morphed into the simpler "T-Mobile @Home," featuring a Linksys-sourced router that plugs into a broadband connection and allows any plain ol' telephone -- you know, the plug-in kind -- to take advantage of unlimited nationwide calling for $10 a month on top of your regular T-Mobile bill. The so-called "HiPort" router runs $49.99 on a two-year contract, and if you're in the market for a fancy new cordless, they'll sell you a two-handset VTech DECT system for $59.99. No worries when you're ready to hop back into the 21st century, either; the system will happily work with T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home WiFi cellphones, too. Look for the whole shebang to go on sale July 2.

[Shoumik @ Jun 25th 2008 12:19AM]

first.
hehehehe

[MastrCake @ Jun 25th 2008 12:27AM]

"Missed it by that much".

-Maxwell Smart

[Dustin @ Jun 25th 2008 1:01AM]

we're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you. and your parents.

[MastrCake @ Jun 25th 2008 12:28AM]

Wait a sec... People still have landlines?

[feffrey @ Jun 25th 2008 12:46AM]

when your only choice for High speed internet is dsl which requires that you have a phone land line, then yes.

[ddub @ Jun 25th 2008 1:27AM]

My cell phone doesn't work inside my house for some reason. I'm assuming I'll be safe from nuclear radiation though.

[Peter @ Jun 25th 2008 2:57AM]

@feffrey: DSL and phone service are separable. I think a law was even passed some time ago requiring DSL providers who are CLECs to offer DSL without phone service. Worth checking.

[Bryan Thornsberry @ Jun 25th 2008 12:41AM]

no.

ps. your an idiot. never post on engadget ever again.

[Alexander @ Jun 25th 2008 12:41AM]

Knew about this for several months thanks to a friend in T-Mobiel. Can't WAIT to get it for my house.

[Dustin @ Jun 25th 2008 1:00AM]

by the way, UMA "wi-fi" calling works great. I have it on my blackberry curve and it transitions as smooth as butter.

Also you should know that it works with any wifi router, not just theirs. I'm using my handy-dandy linksys wrt54g.

[ByronGman @ Jun 25th 2008 1:00AM]

@ Clak

/die now

[tcw @ Jun 25th 2008 1:10AM]

Reasons many do not want to give up landlines:
- In case of power outage emergencies, there is no need to re-charge basic, landline phones. Due to snow, I lost power in my home for almost 10 days, and the only phones still working were landlines.
- Fax lines. Many small businesses abroad still use fax as a way to send messages. E-mail involves having a computer and understanding how to set things up. For most of us on this blog, this seems ridiculously easy to sign up for a free account, but for most people who started their businesses before computers became synonymous with business communication, it's just another cost and method to learn.
Quite a few services I use (car insurance, banking, etc) accept faxed applications and such for verification. They don't accept e-mail, or if they do, you have to edit it and send it back as a PDF. Majority of the world uses Windows, which does not have a built-in PDF creator. Asking the average Joe to use Foxit or Adobe to make PDFs of scanned materials is a bit much. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
I don't understand the point of T-Mobile @Home though, just a gimmick. You spend more money trying to save a couple of bucks. Just get a better plan.

[Shoumik @ Jun 25th 2008 1:14AM]

man i fell asleep reading ur 2 cents.

[George @ Jun 25th 2008 8:53AM]

I think this phone line would go out when the power went out.

[Paul Rivers @ Jun 25th 2008 11:01AM]

"I don't understand the point of T-Mobile @Home though, just a gimmick. You spend more money trying to save a couple of bucks. Just get a better plan."

The point is that a lot of people (like myself) have inadequate cell service inside their home. I have 2 options - I can put up with occassional dropout in my conversations, or I can get a landline and (in addition to a bigger bill) have to deal with having a 2nd phone number. When people call me, they'd have to call my landline 1st, then my cell. When I call other people who screen their calls, they won't recognize my cell number. When other people call me on my landline, I won't know who they are because my cell phone has all my names for contacts on it. I'll have to keep on eye on my landline AND my cell voicemail...

So biggest point about Hotspot @ Home is being able to use your cell phone at your house, even though you have terrible cell coverage there. TMobile has such a limited coverage area outside major cities, though...man, I really wish verizon had this.

P.S. In my experience with verizon, my cell phone still works when the power is out. I'm sure the towers must have battery power backup...it's pretty cool.

[doesnt_matter @ Jun 27th 2008 4:10PM]

If you are worried about power outages and using a service like this, you can get a metered plan from your LEC for cheap (around $5/mo for mine). If the power goes out, plug your phone into the phone jack and away you go.

This is also away around the home alarm issue. How often does your alarm call out.....? Hopefully not very often, a metered plan should also suffice for this.

[Haikibutsu @ Jun 25th 2008 1:19AM]

Clak.

F**K OFF.

Thank you very much

[]At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? - Ceiling Cat[]

[Haikibutsu @ Jun 25th 2008 1:25AM]

HEY CLAK



EAT UR APPLES



[hiko36 @ Jun 25th 2008 1:48AM]

I don't wanna be that guy, but I saw this in a T-Mobile store 2 months ago when I signed up for service. Now that I got that out of the way. It seems like a great idea except for the fact that my cell does it better.

@twc

You can't recharge a cordless with no power. They only offer a cordless model.

[jason @ Jun 25th 2008 3:42AM]

Forget Cordless, this is VoIP. If your internet is down due to a power outage, so is your phone service. This is not Central Office powered, hence not a true "landline", even with a corded handset.

Better get your UPS' ready.

[hiko36 @ Jun 25th 2008 9:16AM]

Good point Jason... I hadn't thought about the VoIP aspect of it...

[ericg716 @ Jun 27th 2008 4:08PM]

you can use any analog corded or wireless phone with this service.

[Jonathan Buford @ Jun 25th 2008 2:59AM]

SmartTone/Vodaphone here in Hong Kong offers something vaguely similar. Basically a cordless phone that uses the cell network for the connection. It can SMS you if you receive a voicemail when you are away, and also has a SIP VoIP connection included as well.

[Kao @ Jun 25th 2008 5:32AM]

no Bryan Thornsberry

you're an idiot

[nyarnon @ Jun 25th 2008 6:08AM]

How is this news? My speedtouch 780WI does this already over a year. Who needs @home. My own provider in portugal SAPO offers the speedtouch preinstalled with their service too and t just like with @home the plan will is ridiculous expensive. Thank god the Speedtouch allows for easy changing of the SIP parameters and I'm running a voip carrier of my own which in essence allows me to call landlines for free. Now thats a deal.

[Torben @ Jun 25th 2008 8:44AM]

Are there anymore details what feature they will offer? If it is anything close to what Vonage offers, it would be a decent deal for $10.

[Neoprimal @ Jun 25th 2008 11:57AM]

It's basically everything you get with your typical cell phone account. The only difference is that the router uses a sim to allow it to make calls over the internet. Works alright with fax machines that are standalone devices but not with softmodem (software fax). It's an awesome replacement for national calling. Unfortunately I call overseas so I'm not sure it would be right for me.

Because ATT does bundles now that often work out better than say, DSL + Basic landline, it may not work out better than that either. But if you're on comcast and do cable this would probably save a bunch of money. That's of course if you can live without a land line. Some people in areas with black/brownouts and frequent natural disasters (tornados, hurricanes, flooding) will probably want to stick with phone service that won't go *poof* along with power.

Great grrat service though. Crystal clear and much better than Lingo or Vonage on a typical 6mb DSL for example.

[fuzzybee @ Jun 25th 2008 10:27AM]

I'd be all over this if:

(1) Our power wasn't out all the time (we lost power 4 times last night for a couple of seconds each)

(2) I didn't have an alarm that was monitored over the phone line.

[Josh @ Jun 25th 2008 11:10AM]

Sprint will start (if it hasn't already) offering a similar service but with your cell phone. The product is called Airave, and it works as a femto cell that connects through your broadband connection (automatically configures itself). It lets you do handoffs into it, but not out of it.

Here's an interesting article on ethernet backhaul in http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=549&doc_id=150914&f_src=flffour . How wireless carriers are trying to move traffic from macro cells, thus reducing their T1 dependency.

[Matthew @ Jun 25th 2008 4:57PM]

T-Mobile already does it with the cell phone, for over a year.

[Dustin @ Jun 26th 2008 2:51AM]

Matthew,

T-Mobile's is a bit different, you need to have a wi-fi phone for it. A femtocell outputs a signal analogous to your carrier's GSM or CDMA signal, depending on the application. Thus you wouldn't need any special kind of phone for it.

[Yipcanjo @ Jun 25th 2008 11:51AM]

Have it.

Dig it.

I was really an economics decision for us. Our land-line + DSL was through Verizon, and we were getting charged through the nose for crap we didn't ever use. We also already had a T-Mobile family plan. Basically, we added $10/month to our T-Mobile bill, and then dropped ~$27/month from Verizon. Net gain. In our case, we ended up bumping our DSL w/ Verizon up too, so we ended up paying about the same in the long run, but we.... 1) kept our home phone number, 2) now get unlimited long distance from our home phone, and 3) have faster DSL.

I should also mention that we are in a "dead pocket" right where we live, so our T-Mobile reception is pretty spotty in our house.

[Jim Pharo @ Jun 25th 2008 1:08PM]

I have the @Home service for my Wi-Fi cel and the biggest problem is that there is often service outages on whatever T-Mobile uses on the other end of the internet connection. If I switch off the Wi-Fi and use the regular cel network, it's OK, but if I go on the Wi-Fi network I often get "network busy" and similar messages.

T-Mobile still has some back-stage, infrastructure-y work to do before this is ready for prime time.

[Garg @ Jun 27th 2008 9:42AM]

I have UMA on a Blackberry 8120 and too have the issue with not being able to get an incoming call - goes straight to voice mail. Occasional "call can not be completed as dialed" and "the number is not in service" when dialing out. Turn off WiFi/UMA - calls go thru with no problem both ways. Still a work in progress...

[JeffinLA @ Jun 25th 2008 6:01PM]

I think this is a great idea. I live in a hilly area, and ALL cell service blows. My internet however, is rock solid and pretty fast (15/2 megs).

I have wanted a solution I could “plug” into my cell to light up other extensions. I have a two story house and It sucks when I have to run around and hunt my phone.

I would take this service and plug it into my 4 line 5ghz cordless system. Nice!

[Drewba @ Jun 25th 2008 7:37PM]

My life got so much simpler when I got a bb 8120 two weeks ago. My house was kind of a dead spot but im loving the uma phones. Living in a dead spot can be frustrating I wish they would come out with more @home phones... like a touch screen with @home.

[aZTEKv2 @ Jun 26th 2008 12:03AM]

it's been in 'beta' for a few months already in the Dallas and Seattle area.

I have been using it for about 3 - 4 months and has had it's ups and downs.

the first couple of weeks it had lots of dropped calls, echo-y feedback, cell-phone (or less) sound quality, etc.

a few months later, after an update i believe...

its been working great and you cant beat the 9.99 price, plus the router was free after filling out a survey after using it for a month (no longer available).

the major con , which i could see being a big deal breaker for some - is the somewhat incompatibility with some alarm systems...
i hear nextalarm(.com) is great... but i couldn't say myself since i am stuck with a contract with another alarm company.

[A. @ Aug 1st 2008 9:06PM]

When I added this service, Earthlink dropped my DSL accounts. Anyone have a suggestion for a DSL service that will work with T.Mobile @ home?

[PK @ Sep 2nd 2008 3:26PM]

I have T-mobile@home for about a month. Everything works great. Sound quality is excellent,voice mail indication right on every phone( I'm using panasonic talking caller id), and you can check voice mail like you used to on a cellphone. It was actually better than my Aastra SIP phone that I had connected to my work sound quality wise. I have verizon DSL for a long time.If I drop their land line to have a dry loop DSL only. Verizon will charge more for the DSL. I think around $42.99. So, what I did is order the new DSL online special for $29.99 with one year contract, then wait till my new DSL is up, connect it to my T-mobile@home. After everything good , then I cancel my old DSL. The saving is phenomenal from around $100 down to $40 a month.