T-Mobile Announces WiFi Meshing Cellphone 275
tregetour writes with a link to a New York Times article penned by David Pogue about a quiet announcement last week by T-Mobile. It has nothing to do with the iPhone, but it could still be a welcome revolution for users plagued by high cellphone bills. "Here's the basic idea. If you're willing to pay $10 a month on top of a regular T-Mobile voice plan, you get a special cellphone. When you're out and about, it works like any other phone; calls eat up your monthly minutes as usual. But when it's in a Wi-Fi wireless Internet hot spot, this phone offers a huge bargain: all your calls are free. You use it and dial it the same as always — you still get call hold, caller ID, three-way calling and all the other features — but now your voice is carried by the Internet rather than the cellular airwaves." He goes on to explain further benefits of the system, and describes the wireless routers that the company will be pushing with the service. The only thing missing: an estimate of when it will hit stores.
Mesh???? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mesh???? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why $10 extra? (Score:4, Interesting)
And what about the consumer who isn't short on minutes? Why not offer an option to use it without an extra charge, but still charge minutes?
Re:Meshing? (Score:3, Interesting)
The real hotness about these phones: you can use them at any wifi hotspot in the world without roaming charges. That's a killer feature.
-Isaac
Re:Not when, but if... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:skype (Score:2, Interesting)
Also according to the article, it does indeed route from hotspot to tower without dropping the call, though going from traditional to hotspot configuration takes longer than the other way around.
Re:iPhone fatigue (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't worry, though, to save your sanity, I won't mention it.
What are the rules for network preference? (Score:2, Interesting)
One thing I'd want to make certain of is that in the presence of both wifi and a cell network, it _always_ gives preference to the wifi, rather than occasionally deciding that the cell signal is stronger than wifi in my kitchen, and therefore starting on the cell and only switching over to the wifi at a later point. Has anyone seen anything that lays out the rules they use for network preference?
Re:Great. (Score:3, Interesting)
B) The text version took 33 bytes plus packet overhead. Still way more efficient.
Another commenter who took me far too seriously points out (correctly) that it is packet rate that will be a problem. I would add that latency will also be a serious issue. I use Vonage on a 1Mbit wireless broadband connection and sometimes latency kills me. The delay messes up the codecs, which take time to resynch. I have to ask people to repeat themselves a lot because my network has highly variable RTT and highly variable packet loss rates (due to the hidden station problem, which still exists with DSSS wireless networks).
So, lighten up. Mine was meant to be a humorous gripe, but with just a little truth to it.
This will work less well than you think. I promise it will.
Re:An estimate? (Score:3, Interesting)
Right now it's only offered in a few areas. I suspect this is more of a test-marketing push rather than a full rollout. T-mobile is probably just dipping their toes in the VOIP waters and may not have rolled out enough IP/phone network gateways to handle a huge amount of subscribers. I'm willing to bet T-mobile deliberately unveiled this during iPhone week so they can just as quietly withdraw the service from the market if they decide it isn't worth it to do the full push.
Re:Not when, but if... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:skype (Score:5, Interesting)
Cellphones don't have to handle hand offs, the towers do all the work. I had a job doing a lot of testing of call hand offs a few years back. You literally drive back and forth between a few towers, or in a bad hand off area (especially around lakes) and work on programming the towers as to when they should hand calls off to another tower based on vector, signal strength, and a tower list. The whole thing is dynamic too, so weather changes, call volume, new construction, etc... can all be handled at least in the short term with out further work.
I know Sysco has some really cool auto-meshing technology that makes their routers talk to each other and adjust signal strength to pick up for downed antennas, but that technology would have to mature a lot to get the same kind of hand off performance as cell phones enjoy.
-Rick
Re:iPhone fatigue (Score:3, Interesting)
Begin conversation...
Locally, there's an Internet Service Provider called "ClearWire" that uses WiMAX to deliver ISP packets. It's real slick, too. When you buy service, you get a box about the size of your average router, with a power brick and an ethernet port.
Take it home, plug it in (power, computer) and go. It delivers DHCP address to your computer, and you're online in about 12 seconds. It really is about as easy as it gets. Even better, there's no phone cable to plug in, no antennas to point, nothing, Plug in, start using.
Combine this black box with VOIP and shrink it so it fits inside your cellphone, and you have an instant cellular provider competitor. Give it time, but it won't be long before this happens.
Re:Not when, but if... (Score:4, Interesting)
Quite a nifty scheme, actually.
Re:Don't be so pessimistic! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:An estimate? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you go to a T-Mobile store and get one of these phones either as a new customer or a contract-extending upgrade, it costs only $49, and (as the article notes) you can get a free wireless router, either a Linksys or a D-Link (there's a rebate involved, but the store personnel handled the tedious task of applying for the rebate) - the router can prioritize voice over IP traffic from the mobile phone. The $10/month rate for the Hotspot @Home service is a temporary promotion, I'm told: it may go up to $20/month later.
The sound quality is very good. One thing I want to test is international roaming - this could mean free cellular calls when I'm overseas, if I'm at a WiFi connection. An unmetered, internationally-roaming VoIP mobile phone would really be incredible.
I have a couple complaints about T-Mobile still. They block some ports on their GPRS service, preventing me from using the Gmail app among other things. In general, they tend to lock down their GPRS more than they should. That's very irritating. I hope the competition from the iPhone/AT&T motivates them to get rid of a couple of their less-customer-friendly aspects. Their customer service (that is, the people I talk to and what they can do for me) has been brilliant - some of the best customer service experiences I've had, and I have complicated telephony needs, with a lot of international-roaming and call-forwarding, and they've always gone to great lengths to be helpful, and they've let me change my calling plan without extending my contract dozens of times.
The phone is no iPhone and not really a smart-phone, either. I'd call it lower-mid-range: a VGA camera (which is fine for me), Bluetooth, Symbian OS (meh), Java-based games (yay). Otherwise, serviceable and straightforward, just how I like it.
Re:skype (Score:5, Interesting)
I start my calls while standing or parked next to a Starbuck's, drive off, and the entire call is free.
Re:Seamless Handoff? (Score:2, Interesting)
seamless handoff taking one minute??? may be they should explain a little bit more about what will happen during that one minute if we are on a call with someone at that moment?
You remain on the cell network for a minute longer then expected. That's all. But since they charge you against the cell phone minutes to go from cell -> wifi after the handoff the extra cellphone minute you use up is insignificant at this point.
Re:Great. (Score:3, Interesting)
Im in
every coffee shop I have ever been in had so high latency and jitter that Voip was 100% useless.
This will be an utter failure, Most broadband is high latency, most free wifi is throttled and minimal bandwidth shared way beyon the capabilities of the connection. T-mobile is trying to stay relevant without adding cell towers like they should be and picked something that will completely kill them as the general consumer will not understand why the wifi phone side is not working. and blame T-mobile instead of starbuck or subway. (Subway stores typically have 256/64 DSL shared between the store and the wifi access point because the store owners are cheap bastards, some that have a clue get the 512/128 DSL plans but most do not. I know, the company I work for designed a internet based radio system for them and many of the stores will not get decent enough bandwidth so that the download of the next day's ad's and music will finish by 9-10am.)
Re:I don't see the connection (Score:3, Interesting)
The connection is, the iPhone does this right now with it's internet browsing (switching from EDGE to Wi-Fi), and lots of people wanted it to do the same thing with voice. That's one reason they wanted to get Skype working on the iPhone since then their voice calls would be handled the way data is.