T-Mobile Goes VoIP Crazy
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Riding on the positive press from their @Home service, T-Mobile is preparing to launch some kind of landline @home service. Although not formally announced and discovered in a filing at the FCC, it is speculated that the next step for T-Mobile may be to free your landline. Using what looks like to be a modified WRTU54G, this router features two (?!) SIM card slots and two ports for standard phone lines. How this will be executed is still a mystery but T-Mobile is certainly innovating.
It’s a cell phone but when you’re home it jumps to make all calls over VOIP. Does anything like this exist?
Evan,
Their is a service here in the UK called BT Fusion from BT.
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayCategory.do?categoryId=CON-BT-FUSION-R1
It has been around for some years now. Used to put calls over Bluetooth before going WiFi also uses BT Openzone hotspots when your out and about. Rumoured to be looking at Fon to use any Fon hotspot when out.
That is just great, man. Why can’t all phones be like that? Check for bluetooth, then wifi, and if not, make the call the regular way.
If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d switch to T-Mobile just for that feature. I guess I’ll have to wait for AT&T to look into it….. some day.
@Evan
Yes, my buddy has the phone from t-mobile. It’s a shitty flip phone (sadly) but how it works is you enable the wifi on the phone. If the phone detects you are on a wifi signal when making the call it uses the VOIP network via the internet/wifi connection. If you walk out of range, the call seemlessly slips into regular cellular spectrum (and starts ticking down minutes).
The VOIP requires no minutes to work, however you have to pay an additional $10/month to use the service. It’s a great idea and I can’t wait for other carriers to start adopting it. And hopefully they’ll use it on smart phones and not shitty plastic flip phones (status quo).
I am very excited about this. I would without a doubt pay an extra $10 a month to make unlimited calls from home.
The only downside I guess would be having to upgrade to a phone that supports WiFi?