Lower Your Cell Phone Bill (and Get Better Reception)

Last week, the New York Times Tech guru David Pogue explained the genius behind T-Mobile's new HotSpot@Home plan, in which, for $10 extra a month, you can make phone calls over a Wi-Fi network for free, without using any of your minutes.

The marketing phrase HotSpot@Home is technically correct, as T-Mobile does give you a special encrypted wireless router to set up at your house. But because the phones that go with this plan work in any hotspot (that doesn't require a login), you can talk without using your minutes in any place with open wi-fi access (or in any T-Mobile hotspot) <i>anywhere in the world</i>. Awesome.

That means that 1) you can get a cheaper plan, as you'll be using fewer minutes, 2) you can use your phone to call home for free when you're in a hotspot overseas, and 3) your phone will now work in areas where it previously had terrible service.

All of this cool stuff is diminished though, if it comes with a sucky phone. And for now, it does. But in a few weeks, T-Mobile is adding the pretty great BlackBerry 8300 to the list of phones that can be used with the plan.