Those of you making use of T-Mobile's VOIP offerings to save some minutes, hang onto your WiFi. The newly
Google-favored carrier has decided to axe its
HotSpot@Home service, meaning no more landline VOIP calls through the service
calls over WiFi from home. T-Mo will allow existing subscribers to carry out their existing contracts (if only to avoid giving them an early out), and everyone can still make calls over WiFi at the company's public hotspots, but no new folks will be able to add the service to their accounts, meaning this old offering won't die, it'll just fade away.
Update: As a number of you pointed out it seems we've got things a bit wrong here courtesy of some conflicting reports. The HotSpot@Home service will live on, but the @Home service, which provided VOIP access through landline phones, is the one being put out to pasture here.
posted January 12th 2010 9:49AM
dumb move seeing T-mobile service sucks! I think there coverage is worse then sprint!
@(Unverified) It is.
@(Unverified)
I have found that it trumps the other major GSM carrier in most major cities, and only in rural ones where it doesn't roam on that competitor does it come up just shy.
Being a world traveler I have found that T-Mo simply destroys said competitor, pretty much on Earth.
This is the crap i hate,i've been with tmobile for 6 years already and they spend too much time bull$h%ting with crap like this instead of building a 3g network.
@reas0n555 orly? You mean building a 3g network that covers 200million people in 1.5 years isn't "building a 3g network"?
ATT only covers 230 million and that took them 4 (four) years to do...
@RMGH yeah this crap came out in 2007 when the other big guys already had 3g. Hell t-mobile didn't finish deploying Edge until 2006,don't get me wrong i like the prices i at t-mobile but they spend too much tome bsing instead of building a better network. They put this crap up so that users can get service where tmo sucks and still havent fixed the issue..just ask anyone that owns a nexus one.
@reas0n555 Blame the FCC for T-Mobile's 3G delay. At least they're making good now that the spectrum is available.
Jimmy won't like this.
That was quick
@MVP
That's what she said...
They are just killing the landline replacement service they offer. This does not affect UMA enabled handsets that use a wi-fi router to make calls through the T-Mobile network.
@Albino Digits I don't think they are killing off their landline replacement. I believe that T-Mobile @home and T-Mobile hotspot@home are two different offerings.
Engadget STILL has it wrong, it's the UMA service that's being discontinued, not the @home VOIP service, which a t-mobile rep just tried to sell me last night.
@Magicland This is exactly contrary to the most reliable information that we have right now, that the UMA-based service is staying live and the landline-based service is going goodbye. The AP story specifically references the @Home landline service, so we're sticking with this until we get an official clarification from T-Mo.
@Magicland UMA is here to stay. This confusions is what T-Mobile gets for naming two very different services so similarly.
@Albino Digits
They are killing the @Home program that lets you use landline phones via modem. They are also changing the Hotspot@Home program that permit use of WiFi cell phones via modem. Those calls used to be free, but now they will be treated like standard cell phone calls, using up whatever minutes you pay for.
Wonder if its because the race to the bottom was won by services like magic jack. $20 a year seems a lot better then 10-15 a month for this or 15-20 for a true copper run from the local telco. Or it could be the increased bundling of these services from ISP like Verizon, AT&T, cable co's that are delivering the internet to the house in the first place.
This article is incorrect. I drilled down to the original source which says they are killing the @Home service which is different than the Hotspot@Home. Hotspot@Home is the UMA service which allows your phone to switch calls over to Wifi. The @Home service is the one which gives you a landline phone over VOIP like Vonage.
I actually have the @Home service and I'm not upset at all because the T-Mobile unlimited plans are so cheap it doesn't make sense to have a landline anymore. Only concern about not having a landline is not having 911.
I wish they would kill it more abruptly because I have the @Home service and don't really need it with my recent upgrade to unlimited.
The AP story and the BrightHand story are about different services. AP discusses the @home (landline replacement) service being discontinued and BrightHand discusses the HotSpot@Home service (unlimited UMA calls) ... looks like both are outta here.
Well, that means I'll never have T-Mobile service again then. At least at my house, which is in a Tmo dead zone. And this isn't out in the boonies either. It's in a big residential area in a city with 1.5M+ people living in it.
I always knew this was gonna be a failure. Since it relied on the phone makers building it into their hardware, & Tmo was the only ones doing it in the US, it didnt take a genius to see that your choices for a decent UMA-enabled phone was gonna be pretty limited. You either had better liked Blackberrys or some crappy dumb-phones cause thats what you were gonna get.
Here's hoping Tmo at least jumps on the femtocell bandwagon so customers who get horrid service at home (prob a lot) will be able to use their freakin phones.
@peestandingup they're not discontinuing UMA.
@peestandingup
Perhaps you live in a Faraday cage...Your house isn't adorned with Stucco by any chance is it?
Oh well...Tmo better buy back the router from me is all I can say.
@RMGH UMA isn't being discontinued, but it's being phased out. If you search around, it is no longer an offered feature. Current UMA customers will be grandfathered in, but new people wanting to add it wont be able to because it doesnt exist in the billing system anymore. This means you wont be seeing any new UMA phones from Tmo either.
So yes, it's going away too (eventually). Just not as abruptly as the @Home landline service is.
@ArhcAngel No, no stucco. It's all brick though & a nature preserve is behind us (may be a factor). But I always got good service with Verizon, so Im thinking its just in a bad spot for Tmo.
It's sad though. This service was a lifesaver for us here at home. I thought it was just poorly marketed & too niche of a service for most folks to understand. The industry didnt exactly adopt it either since all the other carriers went with femtocells instead of UMA (which I hope Tmo eventually does too).
A lot of you seem to not know what you're talking about or complaining about something else. T-Mobile @Home service is just a VOIP phone service that uses your home broadband (aka not T-Mobile's wireless network) to make phone calls. Basically it's like vonage, you get unlimited calls to anywhere in the US and for only $10 a month, I feel sorry for all of you that will miss out
I'm kind of glad they're getting rid of it. I've had nothing but problems with @Home. I have to reset my Linksys router from them at least twice a week because it drops the VOIP link and calls cant come through. Love the cell service though.
@willwork4ammo
I've had the @Home service for over a year and only had that happen once. In fact it's been at least as reliable as my landline was and call quality has also been excellent. Perhaps your ISP just sucks and keeps dropping or losing sync. Or maybe you are using Comcast and they are just sending reset commands to your router.
killing @home softly, killing @home softly,with his song.
That seems very strange. I had @Home service for about a year, then transferred it over to a mobile line about four months ago. Two days ago, on Sunday, I transferred it back over to an @Home line, without a word from the rep that they were trying to stop the service or get me to another plan. Suppose I'll hear something eventually.
I've had this service for about a year now and its AWESOME! So to speak. Never had any major issues and the call quality is the same as a landline, With saving of $35ish dollars a month.
And yes, it is a great service. I have the HiPort router directly connected to a cable modem, then another wireless router plugged into the HiPort to handle the rest of my machines at home. Leaving the HiPort to only handle calls and route traffic from the other router means it hasn't been reset in ages. I have a BlackBerry through work, so having a personal cell phone is unneccessary - a $10 home phone was nice. Hope they let me keep it for a while.
This is a real shame as this service merely needed to be marketed more aggressively. It did set T-Mobile apart for all other carriers IMHO.
I have this service. I have some special Linksys router that has two SIM slots. The router runs through a Motorola / Comcast cable modem. Attached to the router is one wireless phone and then I have another phone in another room. The router has a little blue light that comes on once service is available. (It is always on.) I think I pay some $10/month for the service. So is this the service being killed off? And if so, why? I have been quite satisfied with it.
Looks to be still avalable on T-Mobile's website:
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/cell-phone-plans-detail.aspx?tp=tb1&rateplan=Even-More-T-Mobile-@Home
@IRJ I spoke with a T-Mo rep this morning, she confirmed that the @Home service will no longer be offered to new customers, but she clarified that existing @Home customers will still have it, even past the end of their contracts.
I was really happy 5 years ago to switch to Vonage and not have to pay tons of $$$ to Qwest for phone service, then when I switched to T-Mobile's service and saved an additional $20/month I was even happier. We have had some problems with the phone adapter needing to be reset, but for the price I'd say it's been worth it. Sorry to see that this is losing steam instead of picking it up.
I just signed up for @home last week and received my router yesterday. My landline is porting over next week, looks like I made it in just before they closed the doors. I'll take two years of unlimited local and long distance for $10/mo.
We have @home VOIP service, but aren't using it other functionality (HotSpot) to make WiFi calls from our cells. Could anyone confirm if the iPhone can use this functionality (no app for that), or if there's a list of compatible handsets (I haven't seen one at t-mobile.com)?
I'm somewhat glad to hear that hotspot@home still seems safe for now, although it is clear that it's probably on the way out. There still isn't an Android phone with UMA, and on their web page T-Mobile doesn't list UMA phones separately anymore. They better grandfather in people like me who still use it, ore start offering femtocells ASAP if they really want to kill UMA. It is a pretty convenient service, almost every place where I have a dead zone for normal coverage is covered by WiFi, so it really works great for me.
@cordis I'm not excited about a femtocell. I already have a wi-fi router, as do many people. I don't want to have to buy a femtocell.
Plus, I love being able to use my phone abroad for free just by finding a wi-fi hotspot. UMA is so underrated, I'm ticked that T-Mobile didn't market it better.
I'll repeat what I said when Engadget Mobile reported on this the other day.
I think this is a pretty foolish decision. $10/month for unlimited phone service is a great deal for consumers ($15 cheaper than Vonage and much less than you CableCo or PhoneCo). If they're not making money on it why not just charge a little more? $15 even $20 it would still be a great deal and it really helps people like me who have poor cell service at home. This was one of the main reasons why I switched to T-Mobile and I might be leaving once they fully discontinue service. Unless UMA phones becomes more ubiquitous, and even then It's nice to have a landline for more comfortable phones and to share with the family or roommates.
STILL AVAILABLE: I just signed up today. Subscribers get grandfathered in, so they're going to drop you in 2 years after your contract ends (contract NOT required, but will get you $80 worth of free hardware). The service isn't SIP (it's UMA) so it can be used reliably from behind your firewall of choice without all of the one-way audio headaches. LNP (Local Number Portability) is available for no charge. One time $35 activation fee. 14-day buyer's remorse period. I say, get it while you can!