I went to my local T-Mobile store at noon on Wednesday. It was festive with balloons and all. You can see me with Jessica the helpful sales associate.
Jessica walked us to the HotSpot@Home display and showed us the phones and Wi-Fi routers.
We talked about the advantages and benefits. One thing T-Mobile certainly did right was to make this a feature which can be added to any other service plan.
There is no new ‘HotSpot@Home’ service plan. You can add @Home to any regular T-Mobile plan. Already have a "MyFaves" plan? Just add HotSpot@Home and get unlimited calling for $10/month. That's a great deal.
One other feature of @Home is improved coverage indoors. Buy a UMA-enabled HotSpot@Home phone to go with your existing calling plan and the Wi-Fi in your house improves coverage. You don't need the $10 package for this, just a dual-mode phone.
It’s such a great deal that our local store had already sold out their inventory of phones in just 2 hours!
Good luck trying to beat that, iPhone! (actually, it’s impossible. Apple probably made 5 million iPhones, and just selling that many in 2 hours is physically impossible...)
Anyhow, the word is out. I want my UMA! But apparently I’ll have to wait until a new shipment of phones comes in on Friday. That’s definitely a good sign.
2 comments:
I feel bad for you, Steve.
I guess people in Silicon Valley love their gadgets! As you know, here in Europe, UMA is tied to the mobile firm's broadband, so unless you are already with the right broadband provider, you can't take a shiny box home and get connected right away (unlike those who beat you to the store.)
p.s. Full disclosure - I work for a UMA company
David,
Yes, people like their gadgets here, and $10/month (€7.5) for unlimited calling to any fixed or mobile line is a *very* compelling offer.
As you point out, all of the dual-mode offers in Europe are linked into the operator's own broadband plan.
I believe this is one of the major obstacles holding back the the offers. Making dual-mode handset service available on any broadband connection will definitely widen the market and increase subscribers. We are hearing operators thinking about doing this, but nothing concrete yet.
Thanks for the comment.
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