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tghw

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

wipes a tear

Seriously, VOIP, over US carriers? Yeah, they'll let that happen...

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T-Mobile is the little guy right now but it has the most forward-thinking policies, however with limited 3g coverage.

I have been a T-mobile customer since 1994 (they had 2 handsets and 2 tariffs back then, business and personal) and this is the first time I have heard anyone describe them as forward-thinking.

I hated them when they were VoiceStream.

They were OK when they were Mercury/one2one.

To be fair, their dataplan in the UK is pretty reasonable. Customer support for anyone who isn't on BlackBerry is dreadful.

I've only been a customer for about 5 years, but in that time I've heard their CEO saying they won't be banning or hunting down people who use their phones for tethering, I've seen them roll out the Android phone before anybody else, and I've had really good experiences with their network (in msp and in the rocky mountains). I don't know if any of those are "forward-thinking", but I've actually been a happy customer, rather than a grudging one.

I pay $60 per month for unlimited voice and data, and I can tether as much as I want with no fees, etc.

tmobile's main problem is network coverage (around San Francisco it's quite bad) ...

But its policies and customer service are quite reasonable. From what I gather, at&t has just as bad network coverage but doesn't like you to tether and charges a lot more.

To get measurably better service one needs sprint or verizon, which charge even more than at&t

Supposedly they're starting to roll out HSPA+ now, which ain't too shabby

Google Voice is actually not VoIP. At least not on your end. It's basically just a slick interface to a long distance calling card.

That said, VoIP is surely coming to cell carriers. The FCC has already indicated that it isn't happy with user agreements from e.g. Verizon that restrict what applications you can run on their network.

From the article:

"Google will push full VOIP usage on these, meaning no voice/sms plans needed at any carrier. Voice calls will go through Google Voice on Data SIM cards and will provide unlimited free voice calling. And SMS is replaced by unlimited free Gtalk."

No one said Google Voice is only VOIP. I have it, I use it for non-VOIP calls. The article just says they're planning on doing all of the voice calls over IP. Considering there aren't data carriers that have affordable unlimited free calling, that's the only way you could get "unlimited free voice calling".

The article is wrong.

Do you have sources?

Specifically, they're saying you don't need a voice plan at all, just data, so they'd be using only VOIP, which Google Voice supports. No where are they saying that GV is only VOIP.

but GV is not the google phone, right?

So fine you can use google voice on your old phone, but this is a separate fact from the question of whether the google phone uses data/voip for voice calls.

Correct on both counts. But the Nexus One will be able to use data/voip for calls as well as a regular wireless calling plan, just as my Android Dev Phone 1 does now.

Interesting. Out of curiosity, do you (the user) notice a difference in the UI or call quality when it makes the call over data/voip vs as a regular wireless call?

(on the blackberry google voice app it only supports regular calls, which are all done with forwarding, callbacks, etc.)

Google Voice can send calls to Gizmo5 (a SIP provider they just bought). Phone number forwarding is the feature they let most people use, but there are a number of people doing straight VOIP with it.

T-Mobile already does this somewhat--you can switch between WiFi/VOIP and the mobile network. UMA is great.

http://support.t-mobile.com/doc/tm23449.xml

Can you actually use VOIP over their network, or just over WiFi?

I think it's either voip over wifi or voice of cellphone network. What it sounds like to me is that this phone has an 802.11 chip in it and can be used over a data network.

The bit about not needing a wireless carrier seems to suggest that.

Not that I know of. But thanks to a smaller 3G network footprint T-Mobile is being pretty scrappy with the WiFi. Not a bad play as that can cover you at home and work. As AT&T has shown, you probably don't want to be making calls over the 3G network anytime soon.

So, T-Mobile is pretty bad at explaining all this, and majorly screwed up branding and markering.

T-Mobile has two related but different services, which have been called T-Mobile @Home, and T-Mobile HotSpot @Home (now called wifi calling). @home is a home-phone replacement service, which comes UMA-equipped with a POTS phone plug for you to plug a phone into. HotSpot @Home is actually the service the parent is referring to, which can be considered 'femtocell using wifi'.

The way it works is -- your phone needs to connect to T-Mobile's GSM core network one way or another. Normally it connects over the mobile network, but UMA-equipped phones can connect via a VPN (IPsec) connection to T-Mobile. Once connected it speaks the same GSM language as it would speak over the air, so everything works, voicemail, phone calls, text messages, etc.

UMA is actually pretty awesome -- it can hand-off midcall back and forth between wifi and the cell network, unlike AT&T's femtocell solution.

Another HUGE hidden feature: As long as you can connect over wifi, your phone can connect to T-Mobile's network and send/receive calls, text messages, everything, using home area rates. Anywhere in the world. Billing over UMA works just like connecting to the cell network when you're at home.. so if you have unlimited at home you get unlimited UMA, or if you have 500 minutes you get the same 500 minutes.

This works on ANY wifi network, not just T-Mobile's routers. T-Mobile's Hotspot network of Wifi routers is specially configured to let UMA-equipped phones connect to T-Mobile's GSM core without having to pay.

In summary, T-Mobile's UMA service is awesome, but T-Mobile doesn't seem to be able to tell the world how awesome it is.

Sidenote: I used to work for HTC, and I kept trying to convince everyone of how important UMA is. It's a technologically superior solution to femtocells, but for some reason femtocells seem to be 'winning'. They are slightly easier to explain (a miniature cell phone tower!), but they actually really suck in comparison to UMA. It's tragic to see it happen.

Isn't the wifi radio a much bigger power hog than the cell radio?

Actually, no.

UMA-equipped phones support what is called Unscheduled Automatic Power Save Delivery, an extension to wifi which reduces wifi battery consumption both when idling and when on a call to about the same level as a cell connection.

UAPSD (branded as WMM Power Save) is part of the WMM WiFi extensions, which are a part of most consumer wifi routers.

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