My back porch: a hotspot!
I live on a quiet street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I’m definitely not out in the country nor are there any tall buildings around that could potentially mess with my cellphone signal. Yet when a T-Mobile rep came by the house last summer, he found that I have no service in my front vestibule — yeah, I got a vestibule, what of it? — and just a few bars, to use the scientific term, in the living room. Don’t even ask about the basement. I remedied this situation with a Wi-Ex Cellular Extender, but it wasn’t until today that I finally saw light at the end of the tunnel.
T-Mobile’s Hotspot @ Home is almost a dream come true for folks with poor cellphone reception in the home or off. The service, which costs $19.99 a month for a single line or $24.99 a month for family plans, offers unlimited calling in the US when you are on a T-Mobile or other WiFi hotspot to which you have access. The service comes with either a Linksys or D-Link router — both are approximately the same — that are specially tweaked for Hotspot @ Home’s UMA service.
The service currently supports two phones, the Samsung t409 and the Nokia 6086. I received the 6086 and I can honestly state that it was not my dream phone. It has a VGA camera, EDGE, Bluetooth, and a music player, along with AIM and Internet access and it is quite small. Generally, however, it is a “Meh” phone and I’ll be very excited when and if T-Mobile rolls out support for other WiFi-enabled phones like the Wing or the Dash. Oh well. A girl can dream. This is the only issue I had with the service. Seriously. I just didn’t like the phone.
So what happens when you turn on the phone? It begins to look for open hotspots and if it finds one that it is already connected to, it connects automatically and the hotspot name appears on the screen. That’s it. Now all of your calls, whether it’s a T-Mobile router or not, are routed through WiFi. The call quality, especially in an odd dead zone like mine, is fantastic. It doesn’t sound metallic, as you’d expect from VoIP. Instead, the voice tones are slightly muted and softer without the rasp of regular cell calls. It’s almost like going from landline to Skype — try it. You’ll be amazed at the difference.
The router can be used as a regular WiFi router in the home with no effect on call quality. The phone battery lasted about two days on one charge, an impressive feat for something that has to ping WiFi with any regularity.
In my testing the voice never dropped out using the T-Mo router. I had no trouble using it with my Airport Extreme and the hand-over was seamless — I could walk out the door and down the street and the phone would swap over to cellular with nary a whisper.
T-Mobile is offering the service for $9.99/$19.99 per month, depending on the plan, and, unfortunately, the deal will probably lost in the din of the iPhone this week. Luckily, T-Mobile employees will receive a special handbook that teaches them how to spot badcellularitis, a problem that can strike anyone at any time. Do you have poor reception at home? Are you frustrated with your current cellular provider? Do you live in an area that might have lower coverage due to heavy foliage, shrubbery, or the ruins of an ancient civilization blocking cell towers? Ask your doctor about Hotspot@Home.
“I remedied this situation with a Wi-Ex Cellular Extender” … so did this work well in the longer term or not? The promised “after photo” never materialized.
Let me see if I have this correct. T-Mobile has devised a simple and low cost remedy to the dead-zone-home problem by activating VOIP/WiFi on the selected phone you purchase. They have thought to include a T-Mobile WiFi router to hook in to your existing household broadband service that you pay for separately. Otherwise, what they have done is activate the WiFi capability on that phone or phones which now will operate as such wherever an hot-spot is available. Instead of spending all that money on expensive infrastructure and new technologies that would deliver cellular signal to your vestibule, they have made you a happy camper by hi-jacking your own in-house network and only charging you somewhere between $9.99 and $24.99 per month. Perhaps I missed some other perk to this?
@Bozo - Yes, it worked very well. It’s a very good product.
@Peter W - Please don’t use logic on this because it hurts my brain. You’re actually absolutely right. I’ll yell at them today.
As an aside, I’m currently in Europe and I’m using the Hotspot enabled phone to make calls just as if I were in the states, which is kind of a hidden perk. So in this case, the phone supplants the infrastructure. I completely agree with your assessment - “Let’s let the consumer do all the work!” but I think the real value is out in the wild where hotspots might be plentiful. Cellular, as it stands now, is a dead-end technology. T-Mobile is betting of WiFi for the short term and will probably looking for better options in the long term.
In terms of the cost, consider the price of any possible VoIP to landline solution. To use anything - Skype included - with the frequency you’d use your cellphone would cost as much if not more as this service. While I understand the outrage, I still think the call quality and ease-of-use will win over folks who might not be able to use any cellphone at home. Sure, you pay T-mobile for the privilege of using your $79 a month internet connection, but what else were you using it for?
My question is if I should sign for this service. Can I also use my computer access this wifi network even though I have descent reception at home on the regular celluar network?
Yes, I wonder the same thing. I have a regular T-Mobile cellular account with Hotspot as an add-on; this way, I can access the Internet at T-Mobile Hotspot locations (like Starbucks.) If I sign up for Hotspot at Home, could I also access the Internet using this at home “hotspot?” Thanks!
This HotSpot@Home sounds great to be true. Check this 5 points.
1st. You are already paying a plan that covers your minutes and coverage at leasts 39.99 + tax (why do you have to pay 9.99 - 19.99 more)
2nd. You need to have internet access DSL or Cable thats it’s another 30.00 - 70.00 + tax aprox.
3rd. You have to buy the router 49.99 (free after rebate) and upgrade your phone 49.99 at least.
4th. You like a good neighbor are upgrading t-mobiles network for your neighbors.
and 5th. You are a potential victim for hackers, do you now they only take 15 minutes or less to get your WEP key to access your network or if you dont set a key less than a minute.
So you have to pay 229.95 + tax to have phone in your front vestibule. Great choice.
Hey Damian, perhaps when you learn to spell you could come back and offer some real insight into the service. You are missing the point of the new service. It is designed both to assist customers with poor cell service at home and to allow you a choice in replacing your land-line phone. There are plenty of internet providers (DSL that is) who do not charge the $30-70 range for internet service. My family and I just switched over to Hotspot@Home and are very pleased. If all else fails, remember that you can keep your new phone (49.99), receive a free router, and use that router as a cell tower. You don’t need to pay the extra cost just to have the cell tower in your house. Understand? In that case, no one has the edge over t-mobile. Almost guaranteed cell service in your home with no additional cost. Now that’s a service.
I have had the hotspot@home service and have a mixed reaction to it. I got the service because I want to make sure that I dont go over the 600 min i have. My cell phone is my only phone, so i use it alot and make alot of OFF-Network calls. This saves me alot of money.
Now, as far as the review…. I decided not to go with linsys, but with the d-link router. I already have wi-fi linksys routers and did not like the results i was getting in my area (new development and everyone plus their dog has wifi). Right off, i was having issues with handover and crackling on the line. Tmobile said it was due to towers being down in the area. a week and a half later, i was still having issues, this time, when on wifi, i could hear people and they couldnt hear me… i had this happen after 15 min on hold. I contacted tmobile and they had me reset the device to factory — 2 times. it seemed to work. I reset it to factory about 4 times and retried.. No issues yet. However, this afternoon will be the real test… after the phone being on for 24hrs and off the wifi for 12 hrs… we will see how it works when i get home. I think the problem is fixed.. that there was just something weird in the wifi settings. we will see. When it works, I am very very pleased with the service.. saves my bacon on off-network calls.
I was wondering about calling from the USA to abroad, what will the charges be? Will it be free since it’s over my DSL or will i be charged??
To clarify, this does not give you Internet access at home. It requires you have broadband Internet access at home. If you have a UMA / GAM phone, it uses the UMA/GAM minutes. On a normal rate plan, the UMA/GAM minutes use normal rate plan minutes. So, no additional cost. The additional add-on package for the rate plan is for unlimited UMA/GAM minutes, so if you are at home using the Internet instead of T-Mobile’s cell towers, you’re using unlimited calling (including during weekday afternoons). If you don’t need the extra set of unlimited minutes, then don’t pay for the $9.99.
So for $49.99 you get a Bluetooth camera phone that supports UMA/GAM, and for another $49.99 (potentially with a $50 rebate) you get a free router that has some nice features, like helping extend phone battery life. Not exactly a rip off price.
The D-Link router is a POS; Verizon used to give them as the freebies before they switched to that MoCA Actiontec crap. Anyone know if the $50 rebate is valid for a Linksys WRT-54GL; running DD-WRT Linux on a wireless router is a major boon. Also, DD-WRT provides useful QoS features so that you can make sure your phone always has enough bandwidth for UMA/GAM next to all of your torrents.
I think this feature is wonderful (if not woefully late in competing with VoIP), primarily because it’s unlimited free calling from anywhere you can get broadband internet access. If you’re smart, that means no more roaming charges when traveling anywhere in the world.
I can’t wait to see if the iPhone in Germany using T-Mobile will support this feature.
Part of the problem is this “feature” is not clearly explained to customers. First point: The service is FREE! As long as you have a UMA compatible phone you can make calls over the cell network or a wi-fi in range just as you normally do on your plan. You don’t need to pay anything extra for your plan. However if you “want” you can pay the $9.99 and get “unlimited calling anytime & anywhere” whenever on wi-fi (a good deal for those of us who use that as a land line replacement).
Heads up for helping people chose. The Samsung phone has a few more features but the Nokia is more stable with calls and accepts a mini-SD card.
The Linksys router has better range (ymmv) and is as of right now a linux router. However for those wanting to load DD-WRT it’s not as easy to load (some have has success with certain utilities).
Hi WS,
So, if I cancel the $19.99 HotSpot feature on my account, I can STILL make wifi calls that will not be deducted from my regular T-mobile plan?
Have one, my main goal was to give my wife a turn key solution which allow us to reduce her cell phone minutes to just what she needed when away from the house. Giving her two phones to replace her one cell phone is a non starter. So her plan went from 2000 minutes which she would go over (cell phone is only phone), to 600 minutes. Cost went down from $140 per month to $70. But the jury is still out on this thing. Hot spot calls are only free with US. Calls to canada extra. Messaging, even within the hotspot, is extra.
I purchased this phone with the understanding that “Calls made within the wireless network will not be deducted from your plan’s minutes, which allows you to get unlimited calls and save money at the same time”. However that has not been the case with my Samsung T409. While this maybe the case with the additional Home Router, calls made using while connected to open wireless routers still used my alloted monthly minutes. Bringing along the home router where ever I travel is not a feasible solution.
So what’s the point in this phone? If it was to unburden the overburdened wireless network, then yes it saves the carrier, but it screws the end consumer as there is really no benefit. One of their other selling points has been that you can now receive better signal strength in areas where wireless signal strength was low, but WiFi access was available such as your office or home. If that was really the case, why wouldn’t anyone not just set their phone to Forward calls to their Home or Phone either.
I’m also pretty distraught at the use of the term “Unlimited” as in “Make unlimited calls to anywhere in the US”. It should be more like, “Make unlimited calls to anywhere in the US and we’ll bill you for it too…”
I’m also disappointed with this phone as I was in an International location (Canada) and found an open WiFi Network, I made a call and was charged the International roaming charge even though I was connected via WiFi. If it’s the International roaming charge for Canada while connected via WiFi it’s will be the same for International roaming charge when connected via WiFi while in Europe or Asia. What was the point in this phone?
I’ve had this phone for a month now (Dec 07), my cell service provider is T-Mobile and I’m disappointed with the purchase of this phone.
That is odd. Whenever I am on a wireless network (home work or friend) with net access I do not use any min at all. When I’m out of the home I am using generic routers. If you do not start your call connected to a wi-fi you will be billed for the entire call. International gives free calls too. But you need to be a little more careful. Your call must begin AND end using wi-fi or they will bill you.
I got @home for the VoIP part. For the most part it sounds great. BUT!!, one thing it has problems with is with some menu drive phone services like conference bridge line services, credit help lines, etc. I am trying to determine from T-Mobile and Linksys whether or not a firmware upgrade is in the future to fix this. I believe other VoIP services had similar problems in thee infancy and I hope T-Mobile can get it resolved otherwise I may have to go back to a land line. Anybody else having similar issues?
I have had the service now for about 9 months and have had nothing but trouble. Nokia phone mentioned is not very reliable. I have now had 4 or 5 phones sent to me for the same problem not being able to connect to the WiFi network. I have no Cell coverage where I live and was hoping for this to be a nice solution. My experience has been quite the opposite with long hours spent on the phone to T-Mobile trying to resolve the issues. Presently I am considering down grading my account and getting just a plain cell phone.