.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE T-Mobile’s home hotspot: what’s hot and what’s not
.AUTHOR James Booth
.SUMMARY Welcome to Jimmy’s Hotspot. Everyone is here, enjoying unlimited calling without burning up wireless minutes. In this technology review, Senior Editor Jimmy Booth looks at how you can stop burning your wireless minutes at home with T-Mobile’s Hotspot\@Home service.
.OTHER
Welcome to Jimmy’s Hotspot. Everyone is here, enjoying unlimited calling without burning up wireless minutes. Jimmy’s gonna step out. He needs to walk and talk, because his new T-Mobile phone is his mobile phone and his home phone.
With T-Mobile’s Hotspot\@Home service, you can stop burning your wireless minutes at home. They have introduced the first mobile phone that also works on WiFi in your house, or at any of thousands of WiFi hotspot locations around the country. You can get WiFi and unlimited calling for just an additional $10/month. What you see in Figure A is what you get; a WiFi router and a WiFi enabled T-Mobile phone.
.FIGPAIR A The T-Mobile Hotspot\@Home package.
P.S. You’ll also need a broadband Internet connection.
.H1 How Hotspot\@Home works
T-Mobile’s Hotspot\@Home service consists of essentially four components: a WiFi router, one of T-Mobile’s WiFi enabled phones, an applicable T-Mobile service plan of course, and your broadband Internet connection.
UMA (unlicensed mobile access) is the technology behind the Hotspot\@Home service. It allows you to use your mobile phone just as you normally would, with the difference being that you can connect via wireless broadband Internet WiFi, as well as via the GSM cellular network. Using UMA, the system can hand calls off between cellular base stations and WiFi routers. What this means for the user is unlimited calling and improved in-home coverage.
.BREAK_EMAIL Select this Hotspot to learn more about Hotspot\@Home.
As of right now, T-Mobile only offers two Hotspot phones, the Samsung t409, and the Nokia 6086. If the service gains in popularity it’s likely they’ll add more models.
.H1 What’s hot
There’s an awful lot that’s hot with the Hotspot\@Home service. Number one on the temperature gauge is how easy it was to set up. If you already have a broadband router, setup is as simple as plugging the Hotspot\@Home router into your own. I didn’t even have to run the setup CD; the phone and router automatically recognized one another and connected to the T-Mobile network. Figure B shows the Nokia 6086 Hotspot phone searching for a WiFi signal.
.FIGPAIR B The Hotspot phones automatically look for a WiFi signal to connect with.
The installation CD will walk you through every step of the process for those unfamiliar with network setup.
The phones are capable of connecting via any WiFi source, your home, the coffee shop, college campus; anywhere you have access to a WiFi connection. And with the QuickConnect option, you can set up lists of preferred WiFi locations so that when you’re in range you can place calls via WiFi. For user convenience, the phones are also pre-programmed with all of T-Mobile’s Hotspot locations.
You may wonder, as I did, how T-Mobile’s call router knows whether to send an incoming call via WiFi or the cellular GSM network. Calls are routed based on how the phone is registered on the network. If you’re connected via WiFi, the network knows and will route incoming calls appropriately. The same is true if you’re connected via the cellular GSM network. The call router will typically look for a WiFi connection first.
I was quite impressed with the WiFi range of the phone and router. It was stronger than that of my WiFi router. I confess, my own router is about four years old though; it will only reach about half-way across my third-of-an-acre yard. But the T-Mobile router reached half-way up the next block; better than twice as far as my own.
The WiFi call quality was much better than the cellular too. It may be a result of the signal being closer and stronger than the GSM signal, or maybe it has to do with the call going over broadband Internet; I don’t know. But I can say the call was loud and clear. No static or interference at all.
.H1 What’s not
There are only a few things that are not hot. First is that T-Mobile service is not available in my area. We have a T-Mobile affiliate, but they don’t offer the Hotspot\@Home service.
Second, it won’t work with any WiFi enabled phone or PDA, only those currently offered by T-Mobile. The UMA technology utilized by the service is essential and must be built into the phone or device. As of now there are just the two models, but T-Mobile does have plans to release other Hotspot phones.
The above items are really just incidentals. I do have one thing that is a bit of a complaint. In the promotional information for the Hotspot\@Home service, it states:
.QUOTE Using UMA, the cellular system hands calls off–both incoming and outgoing–between traditional cellular base stations and routers seamlessly for customers.
.QUOTE And when you’re ready to go, T-Mobile Hotspot\@Home will seamlessly transition, your call onto the cellualr network, working just like a regular mobile phone.
"Seamlessly transition your call."
What this means to me, is that I can initiate a call via WiFi, and then walk out my door and down the street, or hop in the car and take off. And when I reach the limit of the WiFi signal, the call will "seamlessly" switch over to the cellular network without losing the call. It didn’t work that way though. When I reached the limit of the WiFi signal, the call was dropped.
Perhaps I misunderstood the promotional material. Perhaps it had something to do with connecting to the cellular network via a T-Mobile affiliate rather than directly to T-Mobile. I don’t know. I was just disappointed it didn’t work the way I had expected.
.H1 What’s the verdict?
Jimmy was very pleased with T-Mobile’s Hotspot\@Home. In fact, Jimmy would even go so far as to recommend it to his friends. Jimmy only wishes T-Mobile offered service in his area so he could take advantage of Hotspot\@Home all the time. Overall, Jimmy rates the T-Mobile Hotspot\@Home service at 4 out of 5.
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.RATING 4
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.H1 Product availability and resources
Learn more about [[http://T-Mobile.com/promotions/hotspotathomelearnmore.aspx?WT.mc_n=HotSpotatHm_index&WT.mc_t=OnSite|T-Mobile’s Hotspot\@Home service]].
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