T-Mobile Wants You to Give Up Your Landline for $10/month

T-Mobile recently announced a new home phone plan that will eliminate the age-old attachment we have to landlines.

The new T-Mobile@Home plan will use a wireless router to send and receive calls: "calls are transmitted from a handset to the Internet through the T-Mobile router; then, the call is completed through the use of voice-over-Internet-protocol technology." (Source: enews20.com)

Many cell-phone users prefer to retain their home phone and use their cells merely for convenience. Some also feel safer knowing that they have a fail-safe phone line at home, that won't have the problems of dropped calls or interrupted service.

The monthly fee is attractive at $10, and includes unlimited nationwide calling. The service will allow customers to keep their home phone numbers, but there is a catch: they have to subscribe to a T-Mobile wireless plan to qualify. They also need broadband Internet service. So, the price becomes more expensive. $10(@Home service charge) + $29.99 (average cell phone plan) + $20-$50 (Internet access)= $59.99-$89.99...probably more than consumers bargained for. Customers also have to purchase a router, which costs $50 when in conjunction with a two year plan.

However, for those who blab away long-distance minutes, the deal may end up being worth it...especially if Internet access is a must-have anyway.

T-Mobile first offered the services to subscribers in Seattle and Dallas. After a whopping 97% of subscribers abandoned their land lines in favour of the wireless option, the company decided to expand to the rest of the country. (Source: betanews.com)

The major question that comes out of all of this is whether people are willing to give up the reliability of landlines. The Dallas and Seattle experiments indicate that they are, and that the @Home model works. It remains to be seen how well this system works in the long-term.