Tweet
This sounds promising.
Mobile phones are replacing landlines faster than ever these days, and T-Mobile is tapping into the trend.
Today, the company launched its HotSpot@Home service, which lets people use their mobile phones over a wireless Internet connection at home without using any of their minutes. T-Mobile developed a technology that hands off the calls between its wireless GSM network and an in-home Wi-Fi router. When outside the house, the phone acts like a normal cellphone.
Besides offering one more reason to ditch a landline in favor of a cellphone, the new service is also an effort to retain customers. Joe Sims, T-Mobile's vice president of new business, told me in an interview that poor coverage in the house is the number one reason customers leave the carrier. And one-third of all calls on the network originate in the house.
But since this service allows customers to make calls without being charged for using minutes, would it cannibalize T-Mobile's traditional business model?
Sims said no. In an eight-month pilot project in Seattle, "customers used just as many of their minutes as they used to--they're just talking at home more," he said. "The overall usage goes up pretty significantly."
To use the service, you must have broadband Internet in your home. T-Mobile will provide a wireless router if you don't already have one. You'll have to buy one of two handsets that allow you to use the service ($50 each), as well as an add-on to the service plan ($9.99 a month for a single line and $19.99 for a family plan).
Recent research suggests landlines are on the way out, especially in the younger demographic (T-Mobile's traget customers). According to a poll released yesterday by Harris Interactive and Ingenio Inc., 89 percent of young adults (age 18-24) own a mobile phone, while only 57 percent own a landline. Fifty-two percent own both.
And a study conducted by Telephia, a market-research firm, showed the nearly half the people who moved in the fourth quarter of 2006 dropped their landline service. A Gartner survey shows that 10 percent of all wireless customers use their mobile phone as their only phone. For 18-24 year-olds, that number rises to 30 percent.
Mobile phones are replacing landlines faster than ever these days, and T-Mobile is tapping into the trend.
Today, the company launched its HotSpot@Home service, which lets people use their mobile phones over a wireless Internet connection at home without using any of their minutes. T-Mobile developed a technology that hands off the calls between its wireless GSM network and an in-home Wi-Fi router. When outside the house, the phone acts like a normal cellphone.
Besides offering one more reason to ditch a landline in favor of a cellphone, the new service is also an effort to retain customers. Joe Sims, T-Mobile's vice president of new business, told me in an interview that poor coverage in the house is the number one reason customers leave the carrier. And one-third of all calls on the network originate in the house.
But since this service allows customers to make calls without being charged for using minutes, would it cannibalize T-Mobile's traditional business model?
Sims said no. In an eight-month pilot project in Seattle, "customers used just as many of their minutes as they used to--they're just talking at home more," he said. "The overall usage goes up pretty significantly."
To use the service, you must have broadband Internet in your home. T-Mobile will provide a wireless router if you don't already have one. You'll have to buy one of two handsets that allow you to use the service ($50 each), as well as an add-on to the service plan ($9.99 a month for a single line and $19.99 for a family plan).
Recent research suggests landlines are on the way out, especially in the younger demographic (T-Mobile's traget customers). According to a poll released yesterday by Harris Interactive and Ingenio Inc., 89 percent of young adults (age 18-24) own a mobile phone, while only 57 percent own a landline. Fifty-two percent own both.
And a study conducted by Telephia, a market-research firm, showed the nearly half the people who moved in the fourth quarter of 2006 dropped their landline service. A Gartner survey shows that 10 percent of all wireless customers use their mobile phone as their only phone. For 18-24 year-olds, that number rises to 30 percent.
Comment