T-Mobile enters US homes with "@Home" landline service

T-Mobile, the mobile unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, announced Wednesday its plans to launch a groundbreaking new home phone service that offers its subscribers unlimited domestic calling for $10 a month.

Originally, launched in late February in two markets on trial basis, the new service, called T-Mobile @Home, enables customers to make unlimited nationwide calls from their home phone for just $10 per month.

T-Mobile USA, Inc., the American unit of the cell phone company, said the service is already available in Dallas and Seattle, where it is running successfully, and has proved to be a great solution for families looking for a way to save money without sacrificing a home phone.

According to a 2007 Scarborough Research report, families in America spend an average of $65 per month on home phone service.

T-Mobile USA, the nation's fourth-largest wireless carrier with 28.7 million subscribers as of March 31 said it will launch the @Home service nationwide on July 2 exclusively for T-Mobile customers.

Besides an array of splendid features like unlimited nationwide long-distance calling, plus call waiting, caller ID, three-way conferencing, voicemail and call forwarding, the $10 monthly subscription includes features typically associated with wireless services like CallerTunes (ringback tones). In addition, subscribers can port their existing home phone number so family and friends can continue to call them at the same familiar number.

To run the service, customers require a touch-tone corded or cordless phone the currently use, an existing broadband Internet connection, and the T-Mobile @Home HiPort Wireless Router with Home Phone Connection.

The router is available from T-Mobile for just $49.99 with a two-year service agreement, or $150 with a shorter contract. Any phone can be plugged into this router that sends the phone call back to the network through the user's normal Internet access.

“For years, the traditional landline companies have been great at consistently delivering one thing to their customers — a high monthly bill,” said Robert Dotson, President and CEO, T-Mobile USA. “T-Mobile is now delivering the best priced home phone service in America for our existing and future customers. In addition, we are not only delivering the traditional features of a landline service, we are also including the innovative features consumers love in their more widely used mobile phones.”

T-Mobile @Home is similar to Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, service, the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network, offered by companies like Vonage Holdings Corp.

But, for VoIP service one needs an adapter that connects to an existing router, while T-Mobile's default solution involves switching out a customer's router if they already have one. “Unlike VoIP, no special phone is required, allowing the family’s center of communications to stay in the kitchen,” Dotson said.

T-Mobile @Home will be offered at T-Mobile retail stores nationwide and online at www.t-mobile.com, the Bellevue, Washington-based cellular carrier said on its Website.