June 21st, 2007
Is T-Mobile rolling out HotSpot@Home service next week?
Last year I posted that I finished a beta test and was going to sign up for the T-Mobile HotSpot@Home service, which I then did. I found the service to be a bit buggy still after the initial beta though and after trying both the Samsung and Nokia UMA phones I cancelled the service during my trial period. You can actually read a full New York Times article that featured my experiences to see how the service went for me. (Unfortunately, you will need a free New York Times login to view the article.) According to The Boy Genius Report, T-Mobile is getting set to kick off the T-Mobile HotSpot@Home service again on 27 June, this time with a nationwide release. There are also some details on a launch contest where you may have a chance for a free year of service. There is a T-Mobile store in Seattle that I could stand in line for, but in this area of techy geeks I don’t feel like camping out for a service I am still wary of due to past experiences.
I wonder if this launch on the 27th is a way for T-Mobile to try to bring some attention to its service offerings since everyone is focused on the AT&T Apple iPhone launch two days later. I would have been happier to hear T-Mobile launching 3G service with some new high-powered mobile phone myself since that would mean they were focusing efforts on that instead of UMA services. I am not sure I am sold on the T-Mobile HotSpot@Home functionality anymore now that I get a full cell signal in my house and the seamless switching between cellular and WiFi just wasn’t seemless for me and I didn’t want to spend all day troubleshooting the service for my wife. I also didn’t want to have a non-smartphone device just for WiFi use and then have to pop my SIM out every time I hit the road and wanted to use my Dash or other smartphone. I would be more apt to try it if the Dash or a better mobile phone supported the UMA service. With today’s mobile phones and integrated WiFi I can launch applications like fring and make calls using VoIP too so I wonder if there is still utility in the service.
Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 06/21/07
