Pimp my phone
Everybody knows what a sucker I am for any device I can assign an IP to. The most recent item added to that list is a UMA/GMS phone from T-Mobile to use on their Hotsot@Home service.
UMA (which has been rebranded GAN, though the UMA name is still sticking) is a technology that is intended to bridge wireless (802.11) internet access to GSM telephone networks. It’s somehow not exactly the same as voice over IP, like Skype uses, in ways I don’t fully grok, but it does, for instance, the 802.11 to GSM handoff when you roam away from your wireless router This is really cool in a bunch of ways.
First is coverage. If you live in a rural area or an urban canyon where cell coverage is spotty, as long as you’re within range of a wireless network, you have terrific cell reception.
Also, the billing options are exciting. With T-Mobile’s plan, your call minutes are debited based on where the call originates, not which network you spend on the call, and minutes are unlimited that start on wifi. So if I start a long conversation at home from my wifi network and walk up the street and spend most of the call on GSM the whole call is free. The same is true if I can start it from another wifi network (any public wifi spot or T-Mobile hotspot (Starbucks)). Or most of them. I’ve tried with the public wifi on the bus and that did not work - probably due to my inability from my phone to accept their terms of use or due to port restrictions in place on networks such as that one.
More on that billing coolness - T-Mobile answered a question I had about international billing by explaining that if I can get on a wifi network out of the US and start a call there, it’s billed like a wifi call that originated in the US - meaning free and unlimited! In practice, this may not work at all. There may be additional GSM infrastructure required to hook up the UMA functionality (the calls starting on wifi, if not the handoff) or it may not actually get billed like that but it sounds really tempting.
My bus is at its stop…more later on what’s not to like…