T-Mobile USA Discounts Its HotSpot @Home service; Customers Must Ask For It
By Tricia Duryee - Wed 13 Feb 2008 11:29 AM PST
Following the news earlier this week that T-Mobile would no longer be the exclusive Wi-Fi provider at Starbucks, the carrier quietly made a few changes to another one of its Wi-Fi services. It said its T-Mobile HotSpot @Home service will now be called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home Talk Forever Mobile, and that the price will drop from $20 to $10 a month. The price decrease applies to any qualifying voice plan, including FamilyTime plans.
The program, which uses a technology called UMA, allows people to automatically roam on to a home Wi-Fi network. In doing so, that person does not use minutes from their plan, and potentially may receive better coverage. Part of the appeal of the service, as well, is that users would automatically roam on to any T-Mobile Wi-Fi network—in a Starbucks, or at an airport.
After Starbucks announced it was ditching T-Mobile in favor of AT&T (NYSE: T), T-Mobile said nothing would change for T-Mobile HotSpot customers. “The Wi-Fi network operations transition will not begin until later this year. Even after the transition, T-Mobile HotSpot and HotSpot @Home customers will continue to experience seamless Wi-Fi access at Starbucks locations for at least the next five years under a roaming agreement between T-Mobile USA and AT&T.”
T-Mobile said the new pricing went into affect Feb. 6, and is not related to the Starbuck’s announcement. The one catch is that if a customer wants the discount, they will have to ask for it. T-Mobile said: “customers who purchased the service at the $19.99/month price are able to switch to the new $9.99/month pricing by calling T-Mobile Customer Care and requesting the new price.”
