T-Mobile @Home Changes the Landline Story - First Take

Michael Gartenberg | June 25, 2008, 10:06 AM

I've been a big fan of T-Mobile's Hotspot @Home service for a while. I love how it allows you to use your cell phone at home over WiFi. Great connections and bonus, for $10 a month all your calls are free, local and long distance. Today, T-Mobile is taking it the next level applying the same technology as a land line replacement service. It uses a special Linksys router that plugs into a broadband connection and also has connections to plug any phone directly into it. You also pop in a SIM card and you're good to go. At that point you get unlimited nationwide calling for $10 a month on top of your regular T-Mobile bill. (you need a plan of $34.99 or greater). The router runs $49.99 with a two year contract and T-Mobile also offers a two-handset VTech phonefor for $59.99. The system will also work with WiFi enables HotSpot  @home phones and is a pretty good router as well.

Overall, the service works well. I just plugged the router into an existing router jack and it just worked fine. T-Mobile has worked really hard to get the details just right, down the fact that there's a dial tone (despite the fact that these are actually wireless calls, no dial tone needed). Calls were crystal clear and i had no complaints or issues with anyone I spoke with.

Our research says this is likely to be successful. 18 percent of the consumers we surveyed, state that they had tried using a cell phone for all of their calls, but later decided to add a home phone service as well.  This number goes up to 23 percent for those ages 25 to 34 years. Overall, four percent of online consumers we’ve surveyed use their cell phone only for their home phone service. For those ages 18 to 24 years, this goes up to 11 percent.

While 18 to 24 year old’s are the most likely to be wireless-only households. 25 to 34 years are mostly likely among all age groups to have added back a home phone. Given that trend, it looks like T-Mobile has the right product at the right time. While T-Mobile will need to work to evangelize and market to consumers the low price point changes the game. The landline is now an upsell to the cellphone.