Email Delivery

Receive new posts as email.

Email address

Syndicate this site

RSS | Atom

Contact

About This Site
Contact Us
Privacy Policy

Search


November 2010
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
  1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30        

Stories by Category

Basics :: Basics
Casting :: Casting Listen In Podcasts Videocasts
Culture :: Culture Hacking
Deals :: Deals
FAQ :: FAQ
Future :: Future
Hardware :: Hardware Adapters Appliances Chips Consumer Electronics Gaming Home Entertainment Music Photography Video Gadgets Mesh Monitoring and Testing PDAs Phones Smartphones
Industry :: Industry Conferences Financial Free Health Legal Research Vendor analysis
International :: International
Media :: Media Locally cached Streaming
Metro-Scale Networks :: Metro-Scale Networks Community Networking Municipal
Network Types :: Network Types Broadband Wireless Cellular 2.5G and 3G 4G Power Line Satellite
News :: News Mainstream Media
Politics :: Politics Regulation Sock Puppets
Schedules :: Schedules
Security :: Security 802.1X
Site Specific :: Site Specific Administrative Detail April Fool's Blogging Book review Cluelessness Guest Commentary History Humor Self-Promotion Unique Wee-Fi Who's Hot Today?
Software :: Software Open Source
Spectrum :: Spectrum 60 GHz
Standards :: Standards 802.11a 802.11ac 802.11ad 802.11e 802.11g 802.11n 802.20 Bluetooth MIMO UWB WiGig WiMAX ZigBee
Transportation and Lodging :: Transportation and Lodging Air Travel Aquatic Commuting Hotels Rails
Unclassified :: Unclassified
Vertical Markets :: Vertical Markets Academia Enterprise WLAN Switches Home Hot Spot Aggregators Hot Spot Advertising Road Warrior Roaming Libraries Location Medical Public Safety Residential Rural SOHO Small-Medium Sized Business Universities Utilities wISP
Voice :: Voice

Archives

November 2010 | October 2010 | September 2010 | August 2010 | July 2010 | June 2010 | May 2010 | April 2010 | March 2010 | February 2010 | January 2010 | December 2009 | November 2009 | October 2009 | September 2009 | August 2009 | July 2009 | June 2009 | May 2009 | April 2009 | March 2009 | February 2009 | January 2009 | December 2008 | November 2008 | October 2008 | September 2008 | August 2008 | July 2008 | June 2008 | May 2008 | April 2008 | March 2008 | February 2008 | January 2008 | December 2007 | November 2007 | October 2007 | September 2007 | August 2007 | July 2007 | June 2007 | May 2007 | April 2007 | March 2007 | February 2007 | January 2007 | December 2006 | November 2006 | October 2006 | September 2006 | August 2006 | July 2006 | June 2006 | May 2006 | April 2006 | March 2006 | February 2006 | January 2006 | December 2005 | November 2005 | October 2005 | September 2005 | August 2005 | July 2005 | June 2005 | May 2005 | April 2005 | March 2005 | February 2005 | January 2005 | December 2004 | November 2004 | October 2004 | September 2004 | August 2004 | July 2004 | June 2004 | May 2004 | April 2004 | March 2004 | February 2004 | January 2004 | December 2003 | November 2003 | October 2003 | September 2003 | August 2003 | July 2003 | June 2003 | May 2003 | April 2003 | March 2003 | February 2003 | January 2003 | December 2002 | November 2002 | October 2002 | September 2002 | August 2002 | July 2002 | June 2002 | May 2002 | April 2002 | March 2002 | February 2002 | January 2002 | December 2001 | November 2001 | October 2001 | September 2001 | August 2001 | July 2001 | June 2001 | May 2001 | April 2001 |

Recent Entries

In-Flight Wi-Fi and In-Flight Bombs
Can WPA Protect against Firesheep on Same Network?
Southwest Sets In-Flight Wi-Fi at $5
Eye-Fi Adds a View for Web Access
Firesheep Makes Sidejacking Easy
Wi-Fi Direct Certification Starts
Decaf on the Starbucks Digital Network
Google Did Snag Passwords
WiMax and LTE Not Technically 4G by ITU Standards
AT&T Wi-Fi Connections Keep High Growth with Free Service

Site Philosophy

This site operates as an independent editorial operation. Advertising, sponsorships, and other non-editorial materials represent the opinions and messages of their respective origins, and not of the site operator. Part of the FM Tech advertising network.

Copyright

Entire site and all contents except otherwise noted © Copyright 2001-2010 by Glenn Fleishman. Some images ©2006 Jupiterimages Corporation. All rights reserved. Please contact us for reprint rights. Linking is, of course, free and encouraged.

Powered by
Movable Type

« Double-Blind Mobile Phone Study, For Instance | Main | UWB Heads to Handsets with Staccato, SK Telecom Partnership »

December 13, 2006

Review of T-Mobile's Converged Cell/Wi-Fi Service

In Thursday's New York Times, you can read my experience with HotSpot@Home: T-Mobile's converged (unlicensed mobile access or UMA) cellular and Wi-Fi calling plan and hardware is available in only Washington state at this point. I tested the service for two weeks, and was quite impressed with overall quality, but handoffs between cell and Wi-Fi networks needs work. T-Mobile won't be rolling this service out more broadly until the hiccups have been scared out of it. But for someone who needs mobility, the fixed cost of Wi-Fi calling, and who likes one of the two available phones, it's a solid offering.

At $20 per month for unlimited calls within the US, T-Mobile can compete with Vonage on pure cost, as Vonage is $25 per month. Skype's decision today to launch $30 per year unlimited calls within the US (and Canada), or less than $3 per month, puts another spanner in comparing plans.

But let's be frank. T-Mobile is a phone company, and they know how to run a network. The intent with HotSpot@Home isn't to make a super-generic Wi-Fi offering. Rather, it's a way to lower customer costs at the same time as they increase loyalty. Their UMA offering is an integrated, single-bill package that's a double-play (fixed location, as in the home, and mobile).

Vonage still has a lot of stutters--in their business and in their service--and the lack of a mobile component means you're managing multiple phone numbers and devices. Would I drop a landline for Vonage? Hardly. And I can't drop a mobile line, so it doesn't buy me anything there.

Skype can't provide reliable service yet--it's not anywhere near telecom quality on average, although individual calls can be fantastic. I've made hundreds of hours of calls on Skype's network this year, and despite having a 3 Mbps/768 Kbps connection at my office, the call quality and other parameters for Skype-to-Skype and SkypeIn/Out calling is all over the fence. It's unacceptable to rely on for business calling without accepting that fact. I love, for instance, when calls go out of sync so there's a several-second offset between myself and the other party.

Now Skype is starting to move into the double play by pushing Wi-Fi only phones, such as those from major Wi-Fi equipment makers. Belkin's introduction of a Skype phone that can place calls using Boingo Wireless's puts them closer to challenging cellular operators. And as Wi-Fi expands to broader coverage areas, perhaps Wi-Fi will be an alternative to mobile calling for some users. But I don't buy it. Voice is very challenging, and Skype is starting already with an uneven service.

I'm watching T-Mobile HotSpot@Home very carefully, because they are the largest carrier in the world to push this as a service that they apparently plan to extend to their entire market. Their decisions in response to real-world performance will affect cellular customers and carriers in the US and internationally, and will also affect how VoIP develops in metro-scale Wi-Fi networks.

Update: British Telecom (BT) just launched their UMA service for SMBs (small-to-medium-sized businesses) in the UK. They're offering the Nokia 6136 and the Motorola A910 handsets; the Samsung P200 will be added next month. They're not offering unlimited calling for a flat rate, but the tariffs for Wi-Fi home/office/OpenZone calls are quite low: 5 pence (p) or less than US$.10 for up to 60 minutes to a UK landline; 15p to BT mobiles; 25p to other UK mobiles. Cellular rates are 25p maximum to all numbers for calls up to 60 minutes.

4 Comments

I used this service during the beta. I found that it worked fairly well and was continually getting better at handoffs. In places (like my home) in which I have bad cell signal, it was refreshing to be able to use my phone and have crystal, clear sound quality.

It is a great idea as you say for customer loyalty. I suppose that WiFi calls mean VoIP. If more and more our cellphones have WiFi capabilities and mobile operators offer flat internet connections, then only the inability of companies like Skype to offer a quality service will prevent them from being a great alternative. Mobile Operators need to lock their customers offering VoIP before we feel the need to do it thanks to offers like Skype.

Here at Devicescape we've been watching UMA carefully, and we believe that when combined with something like our recently announced hotspot login agent, these dual mode phones will be very appealing to operators as a way to both extend their network coverage, especially indoors, and to offload some bandwidth from the cellular spectrum.

The key for consumers though is having the phones switch seamlessly, and be able to use as many networks as possible (much like GSM phones do
today with the various roaming agreements between operators).

As an alternative to UMA, it might be interesting to see one of the MVNO providers include Wi-Fi and Skype into their handsets. Use the cellphone when you're not in a hotspot, but when you step into range of a hotspot, the phone automatically logs in and connects you to the Skype network as well.

Glenn, what were your findings as to battery life? Specifically, how much talk-time did you have in WiFi mode? Also, did you get a chance to test an AP with Power Save vs. a standard one?

[Editor's note: I didn't do extensive, stop-watch battery life testing, but the Nokia did seem to last a few hours of talking and a few days on standby. They claim 5.5 hours in the optimal circumstances--with WMM Power Save--which should mean about 3 to 4 hours in sub-optimal cases, which seems very reasonable based on my testing.

I did test with the D-Link AP that had Power Save enabled, but didn't do enough testing to get a sense of battery life. My suspicion is that to test battery life, you'd need to spend a couple of weeks charging overnight, then placing calls to random number generators to see what happens. And it's possible T-Mobile wouldn't allow 3 or 4 hour calls every day for a couple of weeks on this service without getting suspicious!--gf]