T-Mobile is taking the gloves off in its battle against wireline voice carriers. They will take their T-Mobile@Home service nationwide on July 2nd. T-Mobile has been testing T-Mobile@Home in Dallas and Seattle and according to their press release, "...virtually all customers (97 percent) who had a traditional landline phone service reported dropping that service since adopting T-Mobile @Home." T-Mobile@Home is a VoIP powered voice service that uses a customer’s home broadband connection for connectivity. It’s priced at $10/month, and provides unlimited local and long-distance calling as well as basic features including voicemail, call forwarding and call waiting. The service is only available to T-Mobile customers who have a wireless contract of $39.99/month or more and requires the purchase of a $50 modem. The service utilizes UMA technology, which is also used for their Hotspot@Home service.

T-Mobile@Home offers some interesting competitive implications. It remains to be seen how consumers will react, but it seems like a decent value add to say to a customer who is buying a wireless service contract, we’ll throw in home phone service for an extra $10/month. That’s a pretty compelling differentiating feature that other wireless carriers can’t match right now. Bring your own broadband VoIP players like Vonage and Packet8 also seem vulnerable in this T-Mobile scenario. If I’m an existing T-Mobile and Vonage customer right now, why wouldn’t I switch to T-Mobile? Last I checked, Vonage didn’t have a $10/month plan. At the end of the day this strategy is more about maintaining and growing their core wireless business, than trying to take market share from traditional wireline voice business. Wireless providers are "pulling as many rabbits out of a hat" as possible these days to maintain and hopefully grow their business. The wireless market in the U.S. is approaching saturation. Expect to see more interesting strategies like T-Mobile@Home, as wireless carriers try to meet expectations of stakeholders in a sure to slow wireless growth market. Early indications are encouraging for T-Mobile. They tell PC World that 45% of T-Mobile@Home users in the Seattle and Dallas trials switched from other mobile operators.

T-Mobile will introduce two new handsets to their Hotspot@Home service. Hotspot@Home allows voice over Wi-Fi capability, allowing T-Mobile customers to utilize Wi-Fi coverage at home or abroad to make voice phone calls. The Hotspot@Home plan provides unlimited calling over Wi-Fi networks for $10/month. The new handsets include the Nokia 6301 and Samsung SGH-t339. T-Mobile now has eight Hotspot@Home compatible handsets, including three smartphones.

Looking to make a little wireless noise of themselves during the iPhone frenzy week, T-mobile will launch Hotspot@Home this Wednesday 6/27. Hotspot@Home, a fixed mobile convergence (FMC) service, will offer Wi-Fi offload of mobile calls when a Hotspot@Home capable handset is in range of an appropriate Wi-Fi hotspot. T-mobile has been beta trialing the service in Seattle, WA for the past 9 months. We reported on a similar launch by Cincinnati Bell last week.

This type of FMC application is beneficial to both the customer and their provider. The customer can fill indoor gaps of mobile wireless coverage with their home Wi-Fi network. An extra added bonus is the Wi-Fi use does not count towards the customer’s monthly minute allowance. Although, T-Mobile will charge a monthly premium of $10/month for individuals and $20/month for a family plan (both of which are introductory pricing and will certainly increase after a promotional period) for the service. Eventually FMC handsets will be able to interface with the hundreds of thousands of available Wi-Fi spots across the globe. The benefit to the wireless provider is the off load of wireless traffic off their crowded GSM network, thus giving them some network efficiencies. Additionally, FMC conceivably provides a competitive advantage, as T-Mobile and other FMC carriers can market this attractive application as a differentiating service, from not only competing wireless options, but also with landline carriers.

A viable FMC product like Hotspot@Home helps continue the migration away from traditional landline service. One of the factors preventing landline replacement is poor wireless coverage indoors. FMC alleviates that problem by routing calls through Wi-Fi as a VoIP over broadband call. Problem solved – at least in theory. This begs the question as to why that famous other phone launching this week does not provide FMC options?