I agree, they should provide a service for hotspot operators, just like they provide Google Analytics etc. That way they can let operators build hotspots/wifi networks on their software infrastructure..I’d say it sounds much better than actually setting up hotspots which is what T-Mobile has done at starbucks.

Katie says ‘Public hotspots are t-mobs trump card’. So for GooG to have a hotspot network may not be a bad idea??

Frank

The 2100 band in the US does not line up very well with the the 2100 band in Europe. A major reason for that is because in the US the spectrum is actually paired channels split between 1700 and 2100 MHz. So, this means yet another new RF module inside the phones to support it. Just as today’s GSM phones usually support 850/900/1800/1900, I’d imagine future phones will support 850/900/1700/1800/1900/2100. US 1700/2100 licenses (AWS) have just recently been won, so I wouldn’t expect to see vendors including this support in their devices before 2H08. By the way, Cingular has AWS spectrum as well, so this would not be a differentiator for T-Mobile.

What I want to know is, if they will allow using two different phones? For example, can I take my cell phone with me when I am outside the house to use on a cellular network, while leaving a dual phone at home for my family to use over Wi-Fi?

I agree, as long as you have access to a network it probably will work. So if your mobile device is an authorized entity of a wireless network (such as the corporate scenario you pointed out -OR- any free wifi network) it might be able to do the handoff.

But most relevant commercial hotspot locations such as airports, hotels etc do not fall under this category. For example Boingo probably has the most widespread access to airports (if I’m not wrong it came with the concourse acquisition), so the question is – will T-Mobile have a roaming agreement with those guys (who operate large commercial wifi networks) to allow their subscribers to access all or most of the relevant public networks? i.e. locations where the case for UMA do make some sense.

On one hand the service might become very popular because of the ability to roam aross any commercial network (if they allow that) and that might bring in a lot more subscribers, albeit less ARPU. So I guess they will have to find that point in the graph where things makes sense from a moolah perspective.

But then since UMA isn’t really proven in the market place yet (at least in a big scale), it might just be a fad afterall.