T-Mobile Nokia 6301 Unboxed
While this is not one of the hyped devices that have been highly anticipated, the device is significant because it has WiFi to support upcoming T-Mobile at Home service, launching July 2nd. It’s your basic Nokia phone that has a camera phone, text messaging, web surfing, etc. Roughly one year ago, T-Mobile launched its HotSpot at Home service. Unfortunately, the timing could not have been worse, since the day it launched, it was overshadowed by the launch of the Apple iPhone. The press hardly even mentioned the innovative service that allows a user to initiate their phone call at home, using WiFi, then seamlessly transferring the call to the cellular network when outside the range of the WiFi service.
What this means is that you could start a call, get in your car and drive to work, and not needing to tell the other party: “I need to call you back, I need to switch phones.”
The opposite works great as well. As you come into range to a nearby T-Mobile Hotspot or back to your home WiFi network, the phone will switch over to the higher fidelity network. While the technology works great and I think more people should be willing to use the service, the billing side of things is an entirely different matter. Through a few tests of my own, it appears that the switching on the network, does not propagate to the billing system. So the 10 minute call with 1 minute on the cellular network and the remaining 9 minutes on the home WiFi network, appears on my bill as a 10 minute cellular call. I’m sure it will get fixed in the near future.
