T-Mobile USA Customers Not So Interested in Home Phone Service

It's a trend that continues to grow -- consumers are dropping their home phone or landline service. T-Mobile USA will be dropping active support for its @Home landline replacement service, according to a recent article by the Associated Press.

T-Mobile had launched this home phone service in July 2008 and had offered it for $10per month. The good news is that this does not impact the company's UMA-based @Home Wi-Fi calling service.

"The needs of our customers are constantly changing, and T-Mobile must foresee and adapt to these changes," T-Mobile said in a statement. "As such, T-Mobile plans to soon discontinue selling the T-Mobile@Home service; however, we will continue to support the service for customers who are @Home subscribers. No changes are anticipated in pricing of the service, nor will this decision impact the Wi-Fi calling (Unlimited HotSpot Calling) service."

The need for UMA to provide offload and improving coverage perseveres!

Westell gets (UMA) religion

Earlier this week, Westell announced their first UMA product, the “UltraVoice” UMA terminal adaptor. Westell joins Linksys in providing UMA-based terminal adaptors designed to let mobile operators cost-effectively capture fixed-line home phone service.

T-Mobile’s home phone service “@Home”, has been a resounding success. UMA has let T-Mobile offer home phone service for just $10/month to it’s existing subscriber base. Rather than installing a dedicated VoIP switch, UMA let’s T-Mobile use their existing R4 MSCs as well as billing and customer care facilities.

Considering the business case, I’m surprised more mobile operators aren’t jumping on this:

• UMA Network Controller Port: ~$15
• UMA-enabled terminal adaptor: ~$50
• Changes to billing system: Minor, this is just a second line on an existing mobile plan
• 
  
• Revenue per month: $10 (excludes any international calling)
• ROI: About 6 months

I think it was T-Mobile’s enthusiasm for the application that helped Westell get UMA religion.

T-Mobile's Fixed-line Home Phone Service To Go Nationwide

The now re-named “T-Mobile @Home” fixed line VoIP service looks set for a nationwide launch. I’ll be heading to my local T-Mobile store this week to check it out.

The service, which has been in limited commercial release in Dallas and Seattle, looks to be an enormous success. The article states that a whopping “…45 percent of users of the service … switched from other mobile operators”. Unbelievable!!!!!!

The offer is an incredible value, so I guess it makes sense. T-Mobile @Home offers consumers unlimited flat rate calling for $10/month from their fixed phone line. Comcast, my cable company, keeps telling me I can get the same service for $40.

Britt Wehrman, director of product development for T-Mobile, explains that many households maintain a fixed line home phone for convenience and ease of use. This service is addressing the segment of the market

The “T-Mobile @Home” service is separate from T-Mobile’s dual-mode service “HotSpot @Home”.

If you recall on June 13^th there was an article in DigiTimes titled “Tecom gears up shipments of UMA femtocell base stations”. The article goes on to estimate that Tecom will ship 1 million units by the end of 2008.

Clearly there was a typo with the title, as there are no femtocell deployments with these types of volumes anywhere in the world yet. However, it looks like the Tecom product could be at the heart of the T-Mobile @Home service. If T-Mobile (45% inbound churn) and Tecom (1 m units in 2008) are correct, this is going to be a huge success.

Another fixed line operator drops mobile

Yesterday, the Embarq CFO said that the company may drop its wireless service in 2009, handing subscribers back to its MVNO partner Sprint.

Embarq is the spin-out of Sprint’s original fixed line business. As part of the deal, Embarq developed an MVNO relationship with its former parent.

Embarq was one of the first to develop a dual-mode CDMA/Wi-Fi service. The service was announced by former FMC technology provider NewStep Networks.

In the article, Embarq said their original target was for 1 million mobile subscribers, but had achieved just over 100,000. I can only imagine what fraction of those subscribers actually chose the NewStep/FMC service. Suffice it to say, it’s hard for fixed operators to sell mobile services in general, let alone dual-mode services.

I have written in the past about the problems with fixed line operators developing dual-mode services. The problems aren’t technical. It’s possible to make a phone hand-over between fixed and mobile networks.

The problem is that dual-mode services are fundamentally about Fixed-to-Mobile Substitution (FMS). Yet that’s exactly the opposite of what a fixed operator wants. Fixed operators need MFS solutions, or a way to put mobile minutes back onto the fixed network. That is contrary to what consumers expect today.

Dual-mode services from fixed operators are always going to be challenging.

Note: I found a link to this article from another FMC company focused on fixed line operators. I think this company is actually gone now too.

VCC is (still) for fixed line operators

NXTComm, the former “Supercomm” tradeshow geared towards fixed line operators in the US, wrapped up last week in Chicago. Frankly the VCC world has been pretty quiet of late, but there were three VCC related announcements at NXTComm:

• Aepona is aiming its Voice Call Continuity (VCC) product for service provider OSS and BSS back-office systems integration, offering scalability, service interaction and intelligent rating and charging.

• NewStep Networks and fg microtec, announced that their joint efforts to enable Nokia handsets to interoperate with multimedia applications for 2.5G, 3G and WLAN mobile phones, has led to field trials with major service providers. NewStep also announced that is had completed interoperability certification for Paragon’s latest GSM/VoWLAN dual-mode handset.

• Aricent launched the company’s first VCC server solution, the Aricent Service Continuity Server (SCS).

I guess companies were saving up the news for a fixed-line tradeshow. This just serves to reinforce the message: VCC is a technology for fixed operators.