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

« You Cannot Change the Laws of Physics--or Information Theory | Main | Business 2.0's Road Warrior's Wi-Fi Survival Guide »

November 10, 2004

T-Mobile Girds World with Roaming

T-Mobile expands roaming to Europe, Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA): T-Mobile's US hotspot division announced today that it has agreed to let its members roam to six other carriers' networks worldwide, including Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. They reiterated an announcement snuck into a press release about British Telecom (BT) roaming on Oct. 21 that T-Mobile's international hotspot would also be part of this roaming arrangement. The total hotspots in this roaming network is nearly 12,000.

The WBA has been quiet for nearly a year, and Pete Thompson, T-Mobile HotSpot's director of marketing, said in an interview that the group has been developing the technical infrastructure to handle this worldwide, cross-system roaming. Part of the complexity is that "each carrier has the freedom and flexibility to set the retail roaming rate independent of each other," Thompson said.

During this quarter, T-Mobile HotSpot subscribers will pay no fees to use T-Mobile international, BT, Telecom Italia, Maxis (Malaysia), NTT (Japan), StarHub (Singapore), and Telstra (Australia) hotspots. Thompson said that the company will watch usage and gauge feedback to decide on the ultimate pricing. Each partner in the roaming agreement is purchasing capacity on the other networks at a wholesale rate.

Thompson said no pricing decisions had been set, but that it was likely prices would be consistent across a geographic area rather than varying by provider. T-Mobile HotSpot subscribers get the benefit of a single login, a single bill, and the negotiated rate. Recent analysts' reports have shown hotspot costs for single sessions range from moderately high to exorbitant in most locations outside the U.S.

The press release for this announcement noted that T-Mobile's Wi-Fi customers travel internationally an average of three times per year, but Thompson noted that a smaller subset travels outside the U.S. once a month, and that international roaming has been a top request in their survey of existing customers. "We think it's going to drive a lot of demand and satisfaction," he said.

Thompson noted the extraordinary fact that free roaming has been in effect between T-Mobile U.S. and Europe for two months and generated tens of thousands of roaming sessions--with no publicity. "We expect that to expand quite significantly over the next few months," Thompson said.

While quality of service and security is part of the expectation for all WBA members, Thompson said, 802.1X authentication is not yet a required element, even as an optional item. However, "We are encouraging the other carriers given the feedback we've gotten from enterprises in the U.S."

T-Mobile continues to see a strong connection between its $20 per month unlimited usage plan (with a one-year commitment and early cancellation penalty) and T-Mobile voice cell users. Thompson said 35 percent of existing hotspot subscribers are voice customers of T-Mobile, and that a staggering 60 percent of new Wi-Fi subscribers are existing or new voice customers.

T-Mobile was criticized since its acquisition of the assets of bankrupt MobileStar in early 2002 over deploying Wi-Fi when its voice business lagged. This reporter and a handful of other analysts noted that T-Mobile was gaining enormous marketing exposure as part of their arrangements with premium brands like Starbucks and Borders.

The addition of a cheaper Wi-Fi plan early last year for T-Mobile voice subscribers was certainly one of the steps that brought voice and Wi-Fi closer together, as is T-Mobile's package of unlimited Wi-Fi, unlimited GPRS, and voice minutes on a single bill.

Adding international roaming with negotiated tariffs should allow T-Mobile to extend its reach to more high-end voice customers even further--but it does take some of pressure off the company to open its domestic U.S. network to unlimited, no-fee roaming from other partners.

1 Comment

T-mobile at Borders in my little part of the world charges min $6 for one hour/one connection. Barnes and Noble, a block away, charges 3.95 for 2 hours, unlimited connections. Go figure? No coupons for free access with purchase at either. I do not use their pay wifi, never will. There are many free independent coffee shops/other businesses in my world and the idea of paying Starbucks $9.95 for wifi is silly. Will never pay for wifi at Starbucks. Free Wifi forever.