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May 16, 2008
No Femto Cells needed in my home. WiFi UMA works just fine.
Since 1997, when I choose GSM operator Omnipoint as my wireless provider, I have never been able to use my cell phone at or near my home. And over the years, as Omnipoint was acquired by VoiceStream and then after T-Mobile acquired VoiceStream, I have gotten used to the fact that my cell phone would just not work at home. All of this changed last night after I purchased a new Blackberry Curve. Moments after turning on my new phone and syncing with my home WiFi hotspot, I was able to make and receive calls (and text messages) in places where I never could get a cell signal. Instead of relying on the cellular network to deliver service to my cell phone, T-Mobile’s WiFi UMA service routes calls to/from my home using the Internet and some underlying VoIP technology. T-Mobile’s WiFi UMA service just worked. And I’m now a fan.
While I have been experimenting with a number of dual mode WiFi/GSM phones for almost 5 years, it is my new Blackberry Curve I am now using at home. (I hope to be able to configure my new Nokia N82 in the near future.) I’m glad I added T-Mobile’s “HotSpot@Home Talk Forever Mobile Add-on” to my service plan since it looks like I will be generating minutes on my home WiFi network.
And while the service worked fairly flawlessly at home, my experience might have been different if my kids were also online and pushing the capacity limits of my home WiFi router. I have to believe that congestion of public WiFi hotspots will vary my user experience from time to time, but that’s ok. At least for me.
I originally choose a GSM operator because I was looking for a service provider whose service would work when I traveled outside of the United States. But the not so hidden cost of having a phone number that roamed internationally are the roaming charges that I pay for each time I travel overseas. My hope is that with the advent of T-Mobile’s UMA WiFi service, I will be able to start to save some of the incremental international roaming charging by being able to leverage WiFi networks in the hotels and offices that I visit.
And for now, I don’t see any need for Femto cells in my home. T-Mobile’s WiFi UMA works just fine for me.
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Tags: voip, UMA, T-Mobile, WiFi UMA, Femto Cell, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on May 16, 2008 08:57 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Consumers care about good coverage at a lower cost and don't care about the difference in the technologies. With UMA, each member in a family must buy a new UMA capable handset. With Femto Cell, a family only needs to buy a new Femto Cell.
The Femto cell approach is likely to cost consumers less.
Posted by: zWixard at August 17, 2008 08:38 PM
No femto needed for "you"!
If residential femto service was available today, I would have paid for the new femto device vs. the new BB Curve. In buying the t-mobile service and new phone, you and only you get the advantage of unlimited coverage in your home.
What about the rest of your family? If they are tapping your bb supply, then I can only imagine they are using their devices for communicating with the outside world. If you didn't have coverage, that means they may not have it either.
Going the femto route, you could have purchased a femto device, which I'm sure was less expensive than your Curve, and now your entire family could be enjoying one of the benefits of femto coverage; unlimited user coverage in your home.
Are you still within your 30 day return policy. :-)
Posted by: Ben Ortega at May 16, 2008 01:33 PM
Finally.
Posted by: Gadi Shimshon at May 16, 2008 11:35 AM
Finally.
Posted by: Gadi Shimshon at May 16, 2008 11:34 AM