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T-Mobile Announces WiFi Meshing Cellphone
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.
How about last week... when it actually hit stores? Anyway, it's just too bad that existing phones with WiFi like the Dash don't support this.
seems like a market skype should get into... or are they already?
~/.sig: No such file or directory
It's about time.
Funnypics
Now "I'm in the coffee shop. Where RU?" will take 10000 times the bandwidth it took on ICQ.
So much for Wi-Fi hotspots being useful for telecommuting...
Yeah, but how exactly is it a mesh?
I saw a commercial about this last night.
What does this have to do with the iPhone? I mean, I know the summary says it doesn't have anything to do with the iPhone, but I'm not sure what that means. Did Apple figure out how to do this? Are they working with T-Mobile to roll it out? Are the phones made of white plastic?
the big cell providers will either get with the wi-fi program or die thrashing in nickel-and-dime death-throes.
How is this Meshing? I was expecting the handsets to talk to each other and form an adhoc wifi network.... now I check the word "mesh" doesn't appear in the article.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Will I be able to use it using the existing WiFi system in my cell phone? (BTW I have a Nokia N93)
Seems a little steep for being allowed to run a SIP client on a machine I own.
Also, where does 'meshing' come into this? This isn't a mesh network. If it were, then I could route packets from my phone via half a dozen other random users' phones to a hotspot and not need T-Mobile's network at all much of the time.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If the carriers see this eating into their revenues they won't support it. Why give something away when you can charge for it?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Nokia launched the 6136 last Feb (2006) in Europe:8 5,39252128,00.htm
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,10000000
This does the roaming wifi/GSM stuff as well.
Tested in Oulu, Finland in 2006:
http://www.mobiledia.com/news/49241.html
Anybody know how those tests have gone, what the take up is?
Would hate to work for a fortune 500 company and be talking on this with a co-worker only to have the packets sniffed from some random server in Malaysia on a major pipeline.
If you want to pay full price for the phone you do NOT have to sign a contract. I'm not familiar with T-mobile but this is true of every cell phone company I've ever dealt with (I used to sell Sprint and Verizon cell phones). This will generally make the person you are buying the phone from very sad, because they generally make way more money if you sign a contract, but it's not generally required.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
Why should people pay extra for this? It seems like it should save T-Mobile money by reducing the load on their cell towers (allowing them to reduce their infrastructure costs).
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?
This doesnt sound like a mesh. At first thought when I saw the article I imaged each phone acting like a repeater, creating a mesh and thus extending range for a given hotspot. Alas that doesnt appear to be the case.
There are already commercials about it on TV. And I think I heard of this service before somewhere else. Can't remember...
This is a signature. Bow to me.
If you have not notice people have tried put Skype on their SDA but the cpu on the SDA is somewhat of a limiting factor. It works though.
Like the rest of the Slashdot community at this point, I decided this summary was worth my time only after I discovered it had nothing to do with the iPhone.
Not great news, but it's a step in the right direction.
This is a tiny step toward the inevitable. With the release of the iPhone, the world has become officially aware that our phones now are little computers without keyboards. From this point, it's only a few tiny steps away until the informed consumer is going to want the ability to treat the phone like a computer, including picking the operating system and any software that goes on it. At that point, having such a "mesh" won't be a news item -- it will be a fact of daily life.
technical writing / development
Could you get arrested for this phone 'hijacking' an open wifi spot without the owners permission?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
A friend here at work said he signed up for this last night. He said the T-mobile person who was getting his details said he was the first person she had signed up for this. The main attraction for him is better reception throughout his house.
I wonder, will they still rake me over the coals when I want to call Germany? I get the feeling they will. Just like their unlimited sms for only 20 bucks a month...when you get an incoming international sms...50 cents for each one. Fine print always excludes a reason not to be free or unlimited.
Will wiretapping be an item on the bill, or is it included?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
There are companies other than AT&T out there, you know. And phones other than iphone.
Catagorize this under Rip-Off.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
... wish it worked on more phones. Specifically, it would be nice if they could roll out a software update for the Windows Mobile-based phones (such as my T-Mobile MDA) to be able to use this feature. I'd be all over it then, but as it stands right now, I'd have to buy a new, less featureful phone to be able to use this service.
So how can they charge an additional $10 a month and say "FREE"???? That doesn't make sense, if you are paying $10 a month EXTRA!!!! wouldn't that negate the use of the word FREE.
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?
Let me preface the rest by stating I work in T-Mobiles Operations and Engineering Department, and helped alpha test this device. =) When making a Wi-Fi call, the handset creates a GSM tunnel allowing it to maintain the same security used on any normal cellular call you make. So if you're still afraid of people tapping your calls, I recommend that you don't use a cell phone at all. No releasing it at the same time as the iphone doesn't seem like the best bet, however I'm not in marketing ;)
One of the major advantages of this over a normal wi-fi phone, is that it will hand over between GSM and Wi-Fi and maintain the call. No other Wi-Fi call provider can offer that at this time (AFAIK).
If you buy the phone but not the service, you can still use Wi-Fi but it will use your minutes as normal, the feature just give you unlimited Wi-Fi calls.
Will it make calls for T-Mobile cheaper to process? Maybe if enough people start picking it up, but there was an investment in time and added hardware to the network that would need to be paid off first. But in the long run, yes t-mobile should save money as people route calls over IP, however, this savings is passed on to the customer in that they can make all the calls they want for $10 a month. (It's up to the customer to decide if they will use it enough to warrant that cost)
Working for T-Mo I think this feature is great, but my opinion is of course biased.
The article didn't seem to answer this question: if you have the plan, will your phone also automatically work with (i.e., have a built-in password for) residential T-Mobile-supplied routers? That is, if I go near a house or apartment building where someone else uses this service, and uses the router T-Mobile supplies, will my phone react the same way it would if I got near a Starbucks?
So you're walking by Starbuck's, and your phone decides to use their network, but you didn't buy your cup of coffee there. Isn't this unauthorized network intrusion and illegal? Like the guy that was arrested for checking his email while he was still out in the parking lot?
Good grief, from the number of "this isn't a Mesh" posts, it seems like no one is aware that the word "mesh" has a plain-English meaning. That's the great thing about context. When you read the summary, and then TFA, and you don't see mesh, you should think "Oh, they meant mesh in the sense of joining".
Just because a word has a technical meaning for branding purposes, the plain-English meaning isn't somehow superseded or obsolete.
*most people never really think about the consequences*
Hmmm..
1. Set up wireless AP at my house
2. Wait for WiFI meshing phone to come into range
3. Sniff packet traffic. listen in on calls, or interrupt them. Heck, try to emulate them.
4. profit!
Thank you T-Mobile. You've just given the Phone Losers of America several more years of phun.
"Can you hear me now?"
"ROY!"
With people getting arrested for using free WIFI1 551227)
(http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/23/
why would you use this?
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
When I was workin' there.
The thing that strikes me, with this T-Mobile deal at least, is that you basically get to help them ease the traffic on their network by using your cable/dsl Internet connection. All while paying T-Mobile for the feature.
How awesome of them.
No sig for you!!
It's important to note that the minutes are counted (or not) based solely on how the call originated, not on how it's transmitting now.
You can use this to your advantage, of course, by starting a call within range of your WAP, then continuing it for your half hour commute in your car. Or you can be screwed by it if you take a "quick" call in your car, then get home in three minutes...and talk for another 45 via your wireless network.
Not necessarily a deal-breaker, since it does work both ways - but certainly something to be aware of.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
My (French) ISP plan includes a SIP account that can be used from anywhere.
It also sells a wi-fi/GSM phone for 199.
Not bad for 30/month.
And no, it is not limited to the device they sell, you can use anything you want with the SIP account.
Wifi from the cell phone is a nice option..
But, I would prefer to have a standard cordless phone handset(s) option too. I would definitely get rid of my land line if I could replace it with a VoIP handset that integrated into my cell account.
Multiple handsets might be tougher for their service.. People at home could be using VoIP all day, while I was using my handset on the road.
This has been available in Europe (France at least) for a while. Orange's "Unik" plan. But I think they only allow you use the WiFi at your place.
Other DSL operators (Neuf, I think) have started rolling similar plans, but which allow to use any WiFi tied to the same data plan. i.e., if your friend is also a subscriber from the same service, you can use your cell phone at his place over his wifi for free. (I think)
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
There's already "T-Mobile Hotspot" commercials playing here in Clearwater Florida, they mention that all your calls at home are free, but they don't mention anything about calls anywhere near any wifi spot, it's still $10.
I wonder if this will lead to being able to use "hacked" iPhones on T-Mobiles network.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I get most of my mobile calls when i'm at:
a) Home - Poor cell reception
b) Work - Good cell reception
c) "out and about" - varies.
If I can eliminate the poor reception in my house by having the cell phone use my own wifi connection, then all the better. I've considered in the past getting rid of my land line, but my cell reception isn't that great.
Free != $10/mo. I don't go over my minute allotment as it is already. So this is like giving them an extra $10/mo for nothing.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
if you are willing to pay a bit for an unlocked GSM phone then you can get a sim and then you should not have a contract (oh and btw if you hate the service that much just eat the disconnect fee lets see disconnect charge say $250 24 months in contract @$50 a month break even is at month number 19)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
As the parent suggests, this is old news. These sorts of things have been around for a while, but they really were free before.
FreeWorldDialup used to sell a number of interesting hybrid phones including one that was a regular cell phone that, when in a free WiFi area, would route calls through your VOIP system instead of using the cellular network. I think you had to stay put through the duration of the call because there didn't seem to be any mechanism for switching between VOIP and cellular if you moved out of the WiFi coverage range.
One, interesting device they had was one that would allow you to route your VOIP calls through your cell phone. The idea was that some cell phone rate plans actually made it cheaper to use your cell minutes than your land line for long distance and various other types of calls, so you could just plug your cell phone into this base station and set you dial plan on your VOIP network to route calls to the device. So, you could pick up your SIP phone, dial a number which would route the call through your PBX to this device, which would use the cell phone to make the final connection.
I'm sure a little googling would reveal that these things are still out there even if FWD isn't selling them anymore.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
Instead of all this silly "minutes" nonsense, with separate internet browsing plans, why can't we just have flat-rate connections, IP-based (IPv6 based?), that let the end user decide what to do with the bandwidth, whether voice, web-surfing, or downloading pr0n?
Skype is still a significantly better deal than this offering. For a dedicated line in (SkypeIn) and unlimited calls out to the regular networks (SkypeOut), it's only $7 a month, and is not tied to T-Mo hotspots but just anywhere you've got 'net connectivity. If you've got a skype-capable phone or a laptop it's a much better deal, albeit perhaps not quite as tech-sexy.
The New York Time article very-much outlines why AT&T might one day, hopefully sooner than later, embrace VoIP on the iPhone.
Convergence of IP-powered and Cell-Tower telephony is coming, has been for some time now. The big question remains who will be first to market.
Regardless, if Apple comes through on my prediction, remember where you read it first.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
if this will affect the sending and receipt of text messaging?
it seems to me that this is where companies (especially T Mobile, with the advent of the Sidekick) are making their money these days. My sister was complaining that her cell phone bill was $250 last month.. her normal payment is $60. turns out that for every text sent and received, she's getting whacked for 20 cents, every message sent through AIM is 15 cents (sent and received as well!)
granted, she could put a stop to this by paying another $5 a month for unlimited messaging.
just something to think about.
oh marmalade.
As with anything technological, it seems to me, there's a 10% who explore and the rest settle for whatever is convenient and non-threatening. I'm interested in the 10%, because they'll forge the way for the rest............eventually.
technical writing / development
If this crowd isn't sold on it, do you really think the general public will be? I work with people who refuse to pay their bills online because they think that hackers are going to intercept it and steal them blind. The general public will not trust these phones or the $10 free wifi plan.
The article linked to from the summary seems to speculate a little beyond the official press release from T-Mobile.
Specifically T-Mobile says this will be available from your home Wi-Fi and from T-Mobile hotspots. It makes no mention of general availability from any WiFi location. The story author seems to speculate that this will be due to registration web pages and what-not. Based on my experience with UMA or DMS (Dual-Mode Service) technology and product offerings, I'm imagining the actual reason is E911. The company has to know an approximate location for your phone to supply to 911 dispatchers... Normal location base services (LBS) use antenna face and signal attenuation, or cell tower triangulation, or similar strategies. With WiFi, these don't work... so you need to know the location of the WAP. If it is a HotSpot... T-Mobile already knows and if it is your home WAP... You tell T-Mobile when you sign up for the service.
Also, these types of services do not use SIP (or MGCP or H.323 for that matter), they use GSM tunneled over IP. That is how the meshing is accomplished. The registration event for the GSM-o-IP service is where the MAC address for the WAP being connected to is supplied to the service provider for use with LBS (such as E911).
Would this be good home line replacement? Both my mother-in-law and my wife make long, long calls all day. Assuming this works as advertised, for 10$ a month one could get unlimited national calling and get rid of the expensive land line. Am I missing something here?
I recently purchased an iPhone, only to find that AT&T's coverage sucks where I live (their map claims it's 'good').
If this were available, I would be able to keep the iPhone as my primary phone rather than having to switch back to my old T-Mobile service and return the phone.
But for me the best thing about this would be the ability to use it at home without using additional minutes rather than at hotspots. Even when I'm within feet of a land line I often find myself reaching for my cell because I hate being tied down by a cord. I know wifi only phones and standard cordless phones have been around forever but who wants to carry around another phone.
First of all, it's not "making all your calls for free in WiFi hotspots" if you're paying $10 extra a month for this privilege. Why not get a phone that you can install Skype to and use that?
Of course, it is a service to be able to use your same cell number instead of having to use Skype. But charging $10 extra a month for this seems like a ripoff, since the cell phone companies don't have to pay for the bandwidth. It should be a free for you / free for them deal.
I use to be a T-mobile customer when it was VOICESTREAM. Their plans were good for me and coverage was pretty solid. The reason why the $10 I suspect is when you walk into a T-mobile HOTSPOT (aka Starbucks) this is part of a dataplan.. I suspect.. Because when I was part of the Tmo hotspot i paid $20 so I could link up. What I think is when your phone roams on their network it auto logs you in/authenticate via the internet.. And you are in. I was with a friend of mine in Washington/Bellevue area where Tmobile has a monstrous presence there. He showed me how he was beta testing this phone which they are now producing.. Its a pretty nifty idea. But I am still waiting on their Wireless high speed network (like vzw/sprint)
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
Will they start selling bandwidth to device we own instead of renting locked up box to sell us crappy features one by one? As if we couldn't code an irc client ourself...everyone does that in high school! :P
Once more, now is the time to support the OpenMoko Project and the upcoming (on the 9th) OpenMoko [SC]ells
Or any other similar projects but i didn't find many ... :( !
This plan is setup great for college students who live on wifi enabled campuses. No worrying about minutes used up when you're operating completely off your school's wireless network. Only downside is the annoying login web pages that most places have.
I call bullshit! Every place I went to gave the same story, I would have to sign a two year contract for adding a number, whether I purchase a phone or not. The fucking cell phone companies are out to screw the customers. There needs to be a law against two year contracts. Until there is a law for consumers I will stay away from any cell phone company. The prepay are even worse with having to pay at least 0.50 per god-damned motherfucking minute. Shit, I can use my land line for less than that.
History on this:
GTE had a product called Tele-Go back in 1994.
Back then they were introducing a new telephone base unit that connects a wireless personal communications service (PCS) handset to the regular phone service when it is in range. In effect, it turns a wireless phone into a more run-of-the-mill cordless phone that uses less expensive local phone service around the house.
As a PCS service, the Tele-Go now will allow callers to dial "a number, not a place," as the PCS saying goes, to reach subscribers wherever they may be within the wireless service area. Perhaps more to the point for many consumers, the new base station will let subscribers be billed only for normal service on calls received at home, rather than for a more expensive, per-minute cellular call.
So - when you come home - your cell phone talked to the "Enhanced Cordless Base-station" ECB - which executed a Forwarding of your mobile number to your land-line. So, while home, a mobile call would ring ALL of your home phones. You'd answer, and yak away - not paying an additional price.
When you (and the mobile phone) left home - the ECB would detect it, and cancel the call forwarding. Now, your mobile calls would ring your mobile handset, and your home land-line calls would ring at your home.
The pricing for this service back in 1994? $15 to $25 a month for the mobile phone and the ECB and no included minutes. And then they just paid for the ACTUAL minutes used while away from home, between $0.20 and $0.30 per minute. No equipment to purchase, and no contract. And, if the phone breaks, simply call your sales rep - who drives out to you and swaps your handset.
(Note: I had this job for like, 6 months or so. I do not currently sell or represent any telecommunications company. At the time, I thought it was a neat service - since it's goal was to get cellular/PCS technology into those who previously could not afford it).
FTA: "The handoff as you move in the opposite direction, from the cell network into a hot spot, is also seamless, but takes slightly longer, about a minute."
Does any one else also think that this is a self contradictory statement.... 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?
I never touch my minute limit anyway. WTF would I pay extra to switch to a wifi network? They should be paying me.
T-Mobile works great in my local area, except for 3 places.
1. My house
2. My main office
3. My satellite office
It works on the roads between them, and the places I hang out.
I have open Wifi at the three above places... does this mean I could use T-Mobile without losing/missing calls?
Skype sells an The Wifi phone WSKP100 to use it with FON access points. It is the same plan as T-Mobile: with this phone you can call without extra costs per Internet.
But there are different severe disadvantages. The WSKP100 looks like a cell phone, but it is not. You need an Wifi connection to call someone.
This leads to the second disadvantage: You have to pay for Wifi access at many points. Skype tries to build a infrastructure which would allow their costumers to user free internet connections by investing in FON. The idea of FON ist: you agree to share your internet connection per Wifi and get free access to other FON access points. It's cheap for FON, because they won't have to pay for power and internet connection, the user does. But there is a flaw: how many people can log in to your wifi network at home?
...At a T-Mobile store that was designed to be what an Apple Store should be. More on that in a minit.
h eir-NTP-fiasco. Not too overpriced, either. The Linksys was $49.95 I think. I'm doubting it's a damned bit different than a stock model, but I'll have a chance tonight or Friday to look underneath and also check the firmware.
And they sell Linksys WRT54Gsomethings and D-Link I-don't-care-what-model-cause-DLink-sucks-after-t
Sounds intriguing, if for no other reason than making free calls from home. The in-store pitch is that you can do away with your landline (duh), and the clerk was pretty hyper over avoiding the Vonage/Skype hype and billing fiascos. Yeah sure.
Now, the store. White. Very White. Round window frames (inside of the usual rectilinear stip mall aluminum). Nice blue chairs, very modern and laid back, I forget the designer who made these famous years ago. A set of 4 PSPs for customers to 'just play with', I dunno the games installed. Every modem phone had a working demo except the Sidekick3, which was just a dead battery. Clean layout, touch screens everywhere, really big on the blue scheme. And hints that there's some sort of Sony connection coming. Along with the WiFi stuff.
I'm told by the resident geek clerk that the WiFi should be working in-store by today. He was positively damp over it. The cute clerk actually knows what WiFi is, and is more interested in the Scion Xb out front...
Me? If they whack up a BB Curve with the WiFi plan, I'm in. Otherwise, I'm sticking with my tired old 7105t till I get too much money in my pocket. They unlocked it for me last week, so it's open season for a new plan... woowoo.
I feel like a piece of meat when I try to negotiate a new plan.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
TMO was gracious enough to give me a demo unit about a month ago. It's pretty nice honestly. My house has somewhat iffy reception but, like all technogeeks, wifi. Walk in, it swaps over...and like magic my phone now works in my basement.
Yes, their first 2 phones aren't anything uber special. BFD. They work though.
Anyone want to know why this wasn't a huge announcement? Simple. They're waiting to make a big deal when their killer phone hits. That phone will be the TMO Curve - same form factor as the 8830 Blackberry. BUT, with UMA (i.e. wifi calls). Seamless cellular to wifi swap for data, calls, SMS, and your corporate email. Gone are the days of crappy service in remote offices, home offices, etc. You have wifi? You have cell/blackberry/etc.
This is good for cell phones. It is the "killer app" for blackberries.
There's a $49.99 rebate on that Linksys router, too, if you get the @Home service, that makes it free. It also does encryption and preferential packet routing for your mobile phone traffic.
It is available now, at least in Boston. I was in a T-Mobile shop last weekend and surprised to hear them pitching the thing. They also sell routers that let you turn your home into a hot stop--in fact, this is how it was described to me; the sales rep did not mention that it would work in any T-Mobile Hot Spot.
Thus another reason to avoid Starbucks: Folks loudly clamoring to make their free cell phone calls.Those technoweenies are also the same people with a "linksys" ssid wireless router at home, unencrypted. The media makes a huge deal out of the HACKERS IN THE CYBERSPACES, so the technophobes are afraid of getting their stupid credit cards stolen. But there's hardly any mention of how your wireless broadcasts out in the open, so they're not the least bit afraid of it, and thus fear will not deter them from getting a device like this.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
That makes me wonder - will this allow you to text for free over a Wi-Fi connection? That would be killer for college students attending schools with lots of wireless coverage.
Hey, can I bum a sig?
I use this Hotspot@Home service and find it fantastic! T-mobile already offers the best customer service, now I have a cell tower in my bedroom...and free wifi roaming while overseas.
The Good
-WiFi call quality better than GSM
-WiFi-GSM hand-offs work well
-No minutes charged for calls started on WiFi and finished on GSM
The Bad
-Will not work with hotspots that require a web log-in (aside from T-mobile USA Hotspots)
-The bundled router does not support Mac OS X (to register you need to run a Windows-only application from a CD)
The Ugly
-The service currently works with only 2 very basic phones that even lack a web browser...even though high end devices like the Dash have wifi chipsets
"...What is good for General Motors is good for America." -Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense and fmr President of GM
It seems to me that it would be very difficult to have a useful phone that used free hotspots without accidentally piggybacking on an open network and finding yourself in this guys shoes : http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/23/15 51227
Just a thought.
T-Mobile pre-paid is only 10 cents a minute if you buy 1000 minutes at a time.
T-Mobile's GSM/WiFi phones do not use SIP when they are on WiFi. Instead, they
use a tunneling mechanism to tunnel back to the operator's core, and connect
to their GSM MSC instead through translation layer called UMA (Universal
Mobile Access).
GSM/UMTS has this concept of non-access-stratum
signaling, which consists of messages that are tunneled between the MSC
and the phone, which are completely transparent to the underlying
transport technology. (BTW, the presense of these layers is partially
what makes UMTS/GSM signaling so complicated, especially compared to
competing equivalent technologies like CDMA).
So you are absolutely not offloading the operator's core network. You
are offloading the RF network and the towers, however, which is why
you get some price break.
Magnus.
I was talking to a T-Mobile rep yesterday about this. She said that the monthly rate increases to $19.99 in September of this year.
This seems like a very poorly planned implementation of UMA. I've got nothing against offering UMA over wifi but their router's use a "special" wifi protocol to help you preserve battery life. And the only phones you can use are the ones that TMobile has specially adapted. There's already several phones and smartphones out there with wifi capabilities but none of them will work with TMobile's UMA architecture until TMobile takes the time to develope firmware upgrades for them all.
Instead of offering UMA over wifi they should have made a GSM "Access Point" that you can hook up to your router. That would allow them to boost TMobile's signal to all GSM phones within range of the device and it wouldn't be dependent on the phone having wifi and having a special TMobile firmware. I've seen home and car based GSM repeaters for sale that essentially rebrodcast existing tower's signals and, while the use of licensed spectrum in these applications is legally questionable, I doubt that equipment issued by TMobile would have the same legal issues.
Ideally, since you'd actually be improving TMobile reception for all users, they wouldn't charge you for the device or for the calls you made using any UMA device (they would be able to charge other non-UMA subscribers for calls from your device) although they would probably want to hand pick the subscribers who would actually get these devices as they aren't needed in areas where signal strength is good.
This would address one of the largest problems that cell companies have been having in my area... finding a place for new cell towers. Theres always someone who doesn't want that extra thick lamp post or that fake looking palm tree and GSM access points in the home would fix this issue by letting those of us who don't care put the access point in our homes.
I have this with Cincinnati Bell Wireless, they rolled it out about a month ago. My wife and I have Nokia 6086 phones and this works really well. Between the guest wireless network at work, free carrier hotspots around town and wireless at home I barely use any minutes. The only problem I see with it is the extra radio drains the battery kinda fast. That and the carrier makes you get 1000 minute plan even though I won't use 500 combined with the wireless. The phones handoff between the two methods seamlessly, even during a call. Call quality is excellent. I am on a 3 month free trial of the service, don't know if it is worth it to keep it though since at $10 more a month per line I could just get about 2000 minutes instead.
If your main concern is getting good reception (I live in an area with lots of hills) one of the options is to just get one of the two available WiFi phones (Nokia 6086 or Samsung t409) and not pay the $9.99 charge. According to the phone rep, the WiFi will work over any wireless router. T-Mobile offers two routers that cost about $50 that have the additional benefit of setting your phone into standby mode when the network is not receiving calls for a period of time. I'm going to try the Nokia with my existing NetGear wireless router. Wish me luck!
... because they are clueless asshats. My original contract is a printed web page. How do I know this? Because they didn't even bother to turn off headers & footers for printing, so there's a nice http:// URL at the top. Not over SSL, and they must have sent my personal info unencrypted over the internet at least 6 times during the sign up process. Sadly, I didn't notice this until a few weeks later when I was shuffling papers around.
I'm convinced the T stands for tard, and I can get an IQ boost by picking just about any other carrier. I'm going with Sprint because almost everyone I call is on Sprint.
Also, whoever it was at Tard-Mobile that decided is was a good idea to have a 19 year old valley girl record the voice menu for the account services (balance, minutes remaining, etc) should be forced to watch Clueless until their ears bleed and rot away. I don't call the damn service because every sentence starts with "So, okay...". I swear I can hear gum chewing.
Great, so now when I roll into Starbucks there will be 30 idiots yapping away into their phones as loud as they can.
Isn't T-Mobile claiming the first mobile phone with WiFi even though we have had WiFi phones around for years?
This sounds like a brilliant thing, despite all of the rabble about handoffs. It would be phenominal in the sense that I usually only use my phone when I'm at school (University) or at home, either of which I can easily connect to a wireless network. As I don't use my phone too much while I'm driving (and you shouldn't be either. As a passenger, well, that's another matter, but it can still be rude). The place that this could help me out a lot is with SMS and data transfer. As it is, I don't have a text plan and delete all SMS's I receive unless it's from someone that I actually want to talk to. But I never send many texts because it costs me $.05, which can add up. Also, I could finally get those damn pictures off of my Nokia since I refuse to spend money on a stupid cable they should've included.
The underlying technology is most likely UMA : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlicensed_Mobile_Acc ess/
We've had offers based on this in Europe for over a year.
Very roughly speaking, this works by encapsulating GSM over IP+Wi-Fi. This is why handover between the GSM cell network and the Wi-Fi connection is possible at all : AFAIK, the phone still uses all the higher layers of GSM and the operator's usual servers on their GSM network. Your Wi-Fi access point is just another cell tower.
I personally see this technology as the "evil telecom world's" preferred way to add VoIP on a GSM phone (as opposed to the Internet world's plain old good SIP).
I'd much rather use a real GSM + SIP/Wi-Fi phone like my Nokia E65.
VoIP and GSM calls are perfectly integrated together, and using the SIP account associated with my landline (this is with the "Free" ISP in France), I can call and answer my home calls anywhere in the world exactly as if I were sitting in my sofa, and at the same rates, i.e. free for national calls and to around 30 countries
T-Mob seems to have standing on the platform in front of the ClueTrain(tm). Why do people get a hard-on about using WiFi to surf websites on a 2" display? I want a cellphone with WiFi so I can MAKE PHONE CALLS THAT DON'T EAT INTO MY PRECIOUS MINUTES!!!! Yeah, imagine the novelty of that -- using a cellPHONE for placing voice calls. Hopefully more carriers will catch on and realise that their attempts to shackle customers into exorbitantly-priced, limited-use plans is ultimately doomed to failure. Technology will out.
Oh, and for those in the developed world who want to bring up the dubious use of mobiles as a web-surfing device: get a fucking laptop rather than using a crippled jack-of-all-trades piece of shit.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
I shall a commercial on Sunday or Monday for this T-Mobile service where it was declared that this is the first cell/smart phone with WiFi. I may have missed earlier commercials, or some nuances of the commercials, but after the wide iPhone launch last Friday, I was a bit confused.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
This isn't really normal VoIP - what happens is that the phone runs the normal GSM protocols over UMA (universal/unlicensed mobile access - see http://www.umatoday.com/umaOverview.php for more info), from the phone, over the WiFi access point and broadband router, up to a UNC server (Universal Network Controller) - this is somewhat like a base station controller (Google for BSC+BTS+GSM for more info) that controls the UMA+WiFi access boxes in a large number of homes.
So... GSM voice runs over UMA which runs over IP, as far as the UNC, which then converts it back into normal voice protocols (SS7 switching basically) to the MSC (GSM voice switch) - not sure if that link is over TDM (conventional GSM) or IP. Anyway, the UNC box doesn't actually do any VoIP, all voice switching is done by the MSC, exactly as for normal GSM phone calls.
The benefits of all this are:
1. In-home mobile coverage - I could really do with this at home, as my coverage is very poor - buying a generic powered radio booster (antenna x 2 plus amplifier) is expensive, and doesn't help if there's absolutely no coverage. For some people in rural areas, this may be only way to get mobile coverage at home.
2. Lower cost calls - depending on subscription costs of course, and installation costs, but price should really be lower (see point 4.)
3. (For the mobile operator) More precise 'home zone' tariffs - subscriber gets low cost or free calls from home via UMA, rather than in wider area based on zipcode/postcode. Good when you are at home, less good if nearby.
4. (For mobile operator) Reduce load on normal base station network, and the aggregation network from base stations to the voice/data switches in Mobile core (MSC etc)
5. (For mobile operator) Encourage people to use their mobile phone for all calls, instead of landline - a.k.a. fixed-mobile substitution - and to use the mobile for everything including Internet surfing, email, etc. The controversial Palm Foleo could help here, by letting you use a large keyboard and screen with your single smartphone device, but that's not essential to this idea.
6. (For mobile operator) Harder to switch to another mobile operator due to hassle/cost of going to another similar setup, or losing benefits 1 and 2.
The other way to do this 'fixed-mobile convergence' (FMC) is called femtocells - rather than using WiFi, use a 3G mini-basestation (known as a femtocell), so that you can choose any 3G phone, not just the WiFi Dual-Mode Handsets (DMH) which have poorer battery life and are much less common. So you can get exactly the handset you want, probably at lower cost and with longer battery life. Sprint is doing similar things with its data-oriented 4G/WiMax service, according to http://lightreading.com/
The QoS (latency, jitter, bandwidth and packet loss) for your broadband may well affect voice calls, just like true VoIP - if someone does a big download, you may find call quality suffers or call is dropped. The world *really* needs Packeteer-style TCP rate shaping (and generic DiffServ type IP QoS) in the broadband router, and ideally in the broadband network - but that gets into the whole net neutrality issue, as the mobile operator would need to pay broadband telco to do this...
Caveat: I'm not a UMA/GSM expert, so the detailed architecture comments may need some clarification/correction, but I believe they are correct.
Oh shit. Writing this on Nokia N70 with T9 and Opera mini is a HUGE pain. So I accidentally put the whole message to the subject field ;-)
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
Wait till AT&T rolls out this plan for iPhone for, ummm, "ONE MILLION DOLLARS! MU HA HA HA".
*mumble, jumble*
"SORRY, ONE BILLIONS DOLLARS! MU HA HA HA!"
"Not really. Even though this is about cellular and wi-fi networks "meshing" together,"
Yes really. Why say "not really" then agree with me?
"the term "mesh network" specifically refers to a network where all nodes are also routers."
And doesn't appear anywhere in this article or the summary. So why bring it up?
"Sorry to be pedantic but I'm suspicious of manufacturers changing definitions."
You're not pedantic, you're just wrong. And RTFA, you'll notice (as I said in my original post) that the term "mesh network" appears nowhere in the article. The manufacturers aren't changing anything, and the person who used the term mesh used it acceptably.
Sorry to call you out for being completely wrong, but I hate people like you who start their response with "not really" only to post a totally incorrect reply based on their wrong assumptions and ignorance.
Does anyone know why this doesn't trip the same patent issues that Vonage did with their 'connect phones to IP' service?
And it's already hit stores.
Its a Wifi phone with some VoIP capacity. When you are near a wifi hotspot, the phone can connect to T-mobile's servers.
This is nice, because:
A)$20 ($10 is the introductory price) will buy you unlimited wifi minutes (including T-mobile hotspots, which are everywhere), and
B)You can get coverage in weird places, like your basement, or, for that matter, Tokyo.
Essentially, if you are a T-mobile customer, it obsoletes Skype for you.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
They have two phones - the Samsung t409 and the Nokia 6086 (Both UMA capable)
and two routers - a Linksys WRT-54 and a Netgear (I did not catch the model #).
It's an add-on to your normal cell phone subscription, for only $9.99 per month for a single line, and $19.99 per month for up to five lines on a FamilyTime plan. Whenever the phone places the call over Wi-Fi, it does not count toward your minutes. Whenever it's placed over the GSM network, it does.
The service can be used with any Wi-Fi router. However theirs makes it easier to secure. Also, you can use the phones at any of their Hotspot locations over their Wi-Fi without having to sign up to a HotSpot account.
"And doesn't appear anywhere in this article or the summary. So why bring it up?"
It's in the title! This isn't a WiFi meshing cellphone, since for network purposes mesh has a specific meaning. The access point isn't forming a mesh with the neighboring cell sites, and the phone isn't forwarding packets either. Worrying about it is certainly pedantic, but you shouldn't chew someone out for being wrong when.. YOU'RE WRONG.