iPhone Not The Only New Kid On The Block

Larry Magid Reports On T-Mobile's Hybrid WiFi-Cellular Phone

(CBS)  T-Mobile will be offering two basic plans for the service. On one plan, you will pay for all your incoming and outgoing calls at the same cell phone rate regardless of whether the call is made via the cellular network or WiFi.

There is no financial advantage to this plan but it does give consumers the ability to get service in areas with poor cellular coverage. With the other plan you pay (or use minutes) only for calls that are initiated via the cellular network.

If a call originates from a WiFi network it's free of any charges or deductions from your minutes even if you leave home while on the phone and switch over to the cellular network during the call. Likewise if you start a call on the cellular network and continue it at home, you pay the cellular charge for the duration of that call.

To get unlimited WiFi minutes, you'll need to sign up for the 1,000 minute, $39.99 a month plan for your regular cellular service plus an additional $19.99 for the WiFi service. WiFi family plans are $29.99 a month. There is a limited time introductory price of $9.99 a month for individuals and $19.99 for families.

When you add in the extra WiFi charge to the basic $39.99 cell phone cost, you have a pretty expensive plan. If the only reason you're doing it is to get free minutes, you might be better off going with a company like MetroPCs, which offers unlimited calling plans.

If you plan to travel overseas, this phone could save you a lot of money. I didn't have the chance to hop on a plane to try the phone from overseas but, in theory, it should work from virtually any WiFi network in the world.

Because T-Mobile uses GSM phones, you can make cell phone calls from Europe and most other parts of the world (GSM is the closest thing there is to a global mobile technology) but using an American GSM cell phone from overseas can cost $3.00 a minute or more in roaming charges.

However, if you were to use the phone from a WiFi hotspot overseas, the phone would treat all calls as if they were being made from the U.S., according to a T-Mobile spokesman, which means you should be able to get free incoming and outgoing calls. The spokesman said that use overseas is not "supported" but that he saw no reason why it wouldn't work as long as it picks up a Wifi Internet connection.

I tested the phone with my regular Linksys wireless router that I've had for years. T-Mobile also offers its own versions of wireless routers from Linksys and D-Link that have a one-button security feature that enables you to pair the phone with the router by pressing a button on the router, saving you the trouble of using the phone's keypad to enter a security key on encrypted networks.

T-Mobile says that its router provides for better (phone) battery life and is optimized to give voice priority over data for better call quality. Nonetheless, I didn't notice any problems with voice quality using my regular router even when I was downloading files and talking on the phone at same time. The T-Mobile routers sell for $49.99 but the company is offering a rebate that makes them free.

The company offers two compatible phones: the Samsung t409 and the Nokia 6086 that I tested. Both are capable but unremarkable cell phone with cameras, BlueTooth connectivity, a music player, voice dialing and access to both WiFi and T-mobile's Edge network for data.

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A syndicated technology columnist for over two decades, Larry Magid serves as on air Technology Analyst for CBS Radio News. His technology reports can be heard several times a week on the CBS Radio Network. Magid is the author of several books including "The Little PC Book."

[tbweb]

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