I remember thinking that the problem might be something with my cable modem service and whenever it changes IP addresses. Perhaps the router wasn’t automatically reconnecting for some reason? I’m good with PC hardware and software, but networking has never been my strong suit, so if anyone has any clarifications/additional info on this problem please let me (us) know.

Anyways…

So of course this morning my wife yells down to me while I was working from home (at the same desk with the @Home router) and informs me that the phone is not working. Not a big deal for us since we just use our cell phones. So this time I decide I’m going to try the old ‘ipconfig /release and renew’ trick (it’s about the only networking command I know, and seems to have solved everything over the years…). But first, I cycled the power to the router itself (not the cable modem too, like I had done in the past). No luck – still no blue light/service. So then I went into the Windows command prompt and typed:

ipconfig /release

Then, after it does its thing, I typed in:

ipconfig /renew

Bingo. A few seconds later and the blue light is back and service is restored.

In case you were wondering….yes, I am still very happy with the service. Do I like every once in a while having an outage? No. And I never would recommend this service (or any VOIP service) to anyone who doesn’t have a cell phone too. But we have to keep in mind that the Tmobile@Home service is still quite new and I’m confident they’ll get the bugs worked out, eventually. Until then, say it with me:

ipconfig /release

ipconfig /renew

Ahhh……it’s the solution to everything network related it seems! : )

Seriously though – how about a check in from everyone who follows this blog – do you regret your decision to sign up for the service? So far I’ve seen a lot of complaints but it’s been because of things that, quite frankly, I don’t get. Like, ‘my fax machine doesn’t work’ (why would someone in 2008 need a fax machine? Isn’t that what scanners and eFax are for?).

Over the past month I’ve received lots of questions, some repeatedly, about the Tmobile@Home service. I figured it would be best to just put them together into a Frequently Asked Questions about Tmobile@Home service post. Tmobile hasn’t done the greatest job of answering questions on their site, based on the questions/feedback I’ve gotten from folks. So, here’s my attempt.

Frequently Asked Questions About the TMobile@Home Service

1. Do you have to get a separate SIM card for the Tmobile@Home service?

   Yes. Tmobile isses you a separate SIM card. The Linksys router (that you *must* purchase to get the service) has a slot in it for 2 SIM cards, as the router can handle 2 separate phone lines. I only use one, hence I have the one SIM card in there. The Tmobile rep installed it for me at the store, however I took a look at it after I got it home.

2. What has been your experience with the @home service so far?

   Generally, excellent. Actually, let me be more specific – I’ve had the service for about one month now. I myself am NOT a big phone guy. I’m a geek. I prefer email whenever possible. I have experienced only one issue with the TMobile@Home service – while speaking with my wife this morning on the phone (I called her from work), all of a sudden after a minute or two of talking, I couldn’t hear her. She could, however, hear me, as I found out when I eventually hung up and called her back. My wife uses the phone like 20 times a day. She loves talking on the phone. And she has one of those mother’s who call 4 times a day for no good reason, just to chat and to “just seein what you’re up to!” During the month of use my wife has reported that she did have 2 dropped calls (in addition to the one today that I was on with her). The second one was with a cell phone user who was driving, so she thinks it was on the other person’s end and not the @home service.I had a conference call using the phone with a client. I do freelance web development (need a website? Anything web? Help me out and hire me : ) I often use a service called Adobe Connect, which allows me to share my computer screen with others in a virtual meeting room. During these calls, even though Adobe Connect has a VOIP feature, I always use a regular phone/conference call to communicate audibly. I have done 2 such conference calls in the past month with clients, lasting over 2 hours each, in which I’ve been sharing my PC’s desktop through the Connect service to the other participant’s computer, and all the while blabbing away on the phone (via speakerphone). The @home service has worked flawlessly during these calls. And the VTECH phone’s speakerphone feature is excellent.

   Now, is the service perfect? No. It was the first 2 weeks we had it. But like I said, my wife has now reported 2 dropped calls, I experienced one. That number may or may not be satisfactory to you. I look at it this way – we each have cell phones if an emergency arised. Your mileage may vary.

3. Do you work for Tmobile? Are you getting paid by Tmobile? Are you a Tmobile Fanboy?

   I jumped on the mobile phone bandwagon quite late in life. Even though I’m a HUGE technology junkie, I didn’t get a mobile phone until February of 2007. Well, I take that back – I originally did get an AT&T cell phone back in 1999. After a week or two of static, dropped calls, and no cell coverage no matter where I went, I returned the phones (my wife’s too as she had the same complaints) to the Circuit City we purchased them from. It took almost 8 years later to try again. The Tmobile cell phones have worked flawlessly wherever I’ve been (I travel for work on occasion), with good reception. No complaints. Would I change carriers if I got a better/cheaper rate from someone else? If it was cheaper I would certainly look into it. I have loyalty to no company. As they have none to me. But unless it was significantly cheaper I wouldn’t change. So…after all that…no, I don’t think I’m a fanboy and I can definitely tell you I am NOT getting paid by Tmobile or anyone for writing these blog posts. I wish I could. If you work for Tmobile and are willing to bribe me, there is a PayPal donation button at the bottom of all my posts! : )

4. If you’re not a Tmobile fanboy or employee or agent, then why are you bothering writing these posts?

   A few reasions:- When I first looked into buying the @home service there was literally no good info on the web. To this day there still isn’t, other than the comments/discussion that my posts have generated.

   - I believe in giving back to the web community. I make a lot of purchases based on user reviews, blog recommendations, etc. So why not give back in some way?

   - I *do* make a little money (maybe a dollar a day, but usually less) from the number of times that people click on the ad links I have included in the posts/on my site. It helps defray my hosting costs. It doesn’t make me any money though. I wish it did, and I will be looking into how to try to make some more money that way. If I did, I would write more, so everyone would win.

   - On occasion, if people have emailed me directly asking questions about the service, I *have* asked them to include me as a referrer when they purchase the Tmobile@Home service. When this happens, I get a $25 credit on my TMobile bill. I only ask people to do this after they have told me they are definitely going to go and purchase the service. I do not push people or beg. I have a *little* dignity.

5. Do you need to have a Tmobile wireless account to get the @Home service?

   Yes. You can’t get the @home service unless you have a Tmobile mobile phone plan already, and there are further restrictions – has to be $39.95 or more a month for a single line, or $49.95 or more per month if on a family plan. Incidentally, I have a family plan for my wife and I (so 2 phones), with 1000 anytime minutes. I pay $49.95 per month (~$60 total with taxes), plus of course now the $10 for the TMobile@Home service.

6. Will my mobile phone automatically use the @Home service when in range/in my house?

   No. This is unfortunately something that I’m hearing that TMobile reps are telling people, and it just isn’t true. You need to purchase the separate HotSpot service to get automatic VOIP switching. I do not have it, nor see any need for it, so I can’t offer any review/guidance on the HotSpot service.

7. What do you think of the Linksys router that Tmobile sells?

   It’s of very high quallity. It looks cool (for what that’s worth!). I’ve had LinkSys products in the past and they were great routers. I’ve had other brand routers that were terrible. The wifi coverage is good on the LinkSys and my wife’s Ubuntu linux laptop that I set up for her seems to connect almost instantaneously to the LinkSys router. It was fine but slower in connecting to the D-Link I had previously. But I have one major gripe/disappointment with the LinkSys router – why are manufacturers still making/selling 802.11g routers? Shouldn’t it be an 802.11n router? I had to downgrade from my D-Link Wireless N to to the Tmobile/Linksys Wireless G router, which I didn’t like having to do. Not a huge deal for me though.

8. What do you think of the VTECH Dect 6.0 phones that TMobile sells?

   I like them – the sound quality is awesome, and the speakerphone feature works fabulous. The reason I bought the base/phone set from TMobile when I purchased the @Home service was because it included a flashing voicemail button feature, which works great. It *does* take a few minutes after someone leaves a voicemail for it to start flashing though, which sucks. Also, the phones themselves are pretty light and feel like they could break if dropped too much. I have two young kids, a 3 year old and a 4 year old, so I assure you within the next few months I’ll find out how durable the phones are. I have since purchased an extra handset phone of the same model# directly from VTECH, since, in Tmobile’s infinite wisdom, they currently won’t sell you an extra handset! And as of a month ago the only place to buy an extra handset was direct from VTECH. Fortunately, shipping was quite fast.All that said….would I buy the phones again? No. Because from reader reports, any DECT 6.0 phone with a voicemail indicator seems to work with the @home router, and you can get better deals by buying the phone plus extra handsets all at once instead of buying the base/handset combo from TMobile and then buying extra handsets directly from the manufacturer. I posted a review of the VTECH phones here.

If you don’t want to go with the VTECH phone, check out the other DECT 6.0 phones that Amazon.com sells.

9. Do I have to buy new phones to use the @home service?

   No. In fact, numerous readers report/confirm that you don’t have to use a wireless phone at all! You can route the line from the Linksys router back into your phone jack and it’ll feed the rest of the phones in your house connected the internal phone jacks of your home. That’s pretty cool. I haven’t tried it myself though, and my house is fairly small and I’ve already purchased the VTECH phones so no need for me to try. Read the user comments on the posts and you’ll learn how this is all done.

10. Does T-Mobile provide the DSL service? (faq  contributed by B Woodman – thanks!)

    No. T-Mobile only provides mobile phone service (which you must have or else you can’t get the @home service), the Tmobile HotSpot@Home service, and the @Home service. No DSL or broadband. If you have DSL currently then odds are you also have a landline phone through the same provider who is providing your DSL service. If so, then you need to figure out your strategy BEFORE committing to the T-Mobile@Home service. You MUST have broadband internet service in order to use T-Mobile@Home, and in some places I’m told that if you cancel your DSL then you also lose your phone. In my area, Verizon switched me automatically to “Dry Loop DSL” (basically DSL without the phone service) automatically once I ported my landline phone # to the @Home phone. But the price went up $12 per month for the DSL. I wrote a post about this here.

11. When T-Mobile says $10/month “plus taxes & fees”, how much are those add-ons? Or, in other words, what is your total monthly bill? (faq  contributed by B Woodman – thanks!)

    I haven’t gotten my first bill yet. But I’m confident it won’t be more than a dollar or two tax on the $10 @Home service. Considering I was paying >$60 per month for my landline, I’ll take it!

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll continue to update this as questions come up and I find/have answers. If you have anything you think I should add please leave a comment.

I did have one person email me saying that they were getting constant drops in service – ie, the blue light on the router that indicates that phone service is working, would go out for them sometimes. They sent me a couple of links to some discussions where other folks are having issues too:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20706463-TMobileHome-Review~start=40

http://forums.linksys.com/linksys/board/message?board.id=VoIP_Routers&message.id=2803

Based on my experience thus far with the service and the router, I’m leaning towards the problem these folks are having being due to their internet service provider. But that’s purely a guess. Incidentally – I have not even bothered to look on TMobile’s site for new firmware and couldn’t tell you what version my router’s firmware is using. I’ll knock on wood and hope to not have to look anytime soon, as I won’t bother upgrading unless I can foresee a real benefit or am having trouble.

I wanted to give a half-thumbs up to Tmobile’s customer service, and a full thumbs-up to Verizon’s. Yesterday afternoon I called Tmobile to begin the process of porting my Verizon-based landline number to the @Home service. It took me 3 calls to get to the person who could actually do the porting. The first time I called I got a lady who told me she couldn’t do it (even though the automated ‘how can I help you?’ voice asked me what I needed done, and I told it that I wanted to ‘port a number’, and it correctly responded by repeating what I wanted to do). So the lady doesn’t transfer me, she gives me a phone number to call. An 800 number that, it turns out, is disconnected!

So I call back and this time I get transferred….and after a few seconds I got hung up on. So I call back and the third time I get a friendly fellow who I explained what I was trying to do. He apologized profusely and said he could take care of the porting for me. I explained the situation – that I currently have Verizon DSL and phone, and I want to port my landline phone @ to @Home. A bell went off in my  head as I explained it to him, and before I could say, “Oh Shit!” to myself, he said to me – “Sir, I’m happy to port your number but if we do you may lose your DSL and, with it, your new @Home service will be useless!”

Amazingly, I completely forgot about this little detail : ( It is was kept me from trying Vonage all these years.

So I do some googling and find out about something called “dry loop DSL” – where you can get DSL without having to have a landline number. But every single shred of info on it on the web was a blog post from people complaining that Verizon either was telling them it wasn’t possible but was, or that it would be difficult to get them to agree to do it. I was prepared to dump Verizon DSL and go with, ugh, Comcast broadband (I may still do it….see below why).  So, with much trepidation, I called Verizon and explained the situation. To my surprise, the Verizon rep said to me (paraphrased): “Not a problem sir. What you’re trying to do is called dry loop DSL and we can do that for you. Hold on and let me verify that it will automatically switch over for you.” I had not mentioned the term ‘dry loop’ thinking I’d get someone who would have no clue. But this guy had a clue and was cool. He checked with his superiors to ensure that, once my phone number was ported, that I would automatically be switched to a dry loop dsl line, and they said yes that I’m all set.

So, in 6 to 10 days I’ll be switched over to @Home fully and will be better able to evaluate the service.

The one downside to ‘dry loop dsl’ is that my DSL bill is going up $12 to $41.95 per month, which sucks. I get a rock-solid 2.8mbps down and 700kbps up through this DSL service that I’ve had for about 5 years now. I originally had Comcast cable broadband when I moved into my current house and it was terrible – constant lag/drops, and even full days at a time with no email or, worse, no internet access at all. I finally got fed up and switched to Verizon DSL and have loved it – I can only remember one outage and it was for about 8 hours one day, and they proactively credited us for it. Comcast would do no such thing.

But now, Comcast is offering an ‘up to 6mbps’ broadband deal currently for $19.95 for 6 months, and then $42.95. Also, they’re offering $42.95 off the bat (ie, no discount for 6 months) for their alleged 12mbps service. If I was confident that I’d actually get those results and the service would be reliable, I’d go for it in a heartbeat.  But I do a lot of work from home as a web developer and the last thing I can tell my clients is, “Sorry I didn’t get that file to you faster – my internet was down…” when they’re looking to me to help them with server setups and the like! If anyone has any opinion on Comcast broadband in the Southeastern Pennsylvania area, I’d love to hear it.

11/02/2008 NOTE: After I originally wrote this post a few months ago, T-Mobile linked to it from their t-mobileathome.com site. This has resulted in a huge number of emails/comments on the posts I’ve written about the service. While I appreciate T-Mobile linking to my blog, as all the links/hits I get drives traffic to my site and the small (very small) amount of money I make from the clicked-on ads and such help defray server costs, I want to make it clear that I have no affiliation with T-Mobile whatsoever and receive nothing from them (and never have), other than the services I’ve paid for.

I usually don’t mix personal posts on this blog, but it’s the only blog I have right now going, and well, this is a topic that people are really interested in it seems. There are very few folks who have actually signed up for the new Tmobile@Home service (I’m guessing this because so few people have info on the web about it). So, in the interest of sharing info back to the web community….here I go…

Yesterday afternoon I went to my local Tmobile store to sign up for the @Home service. I am currently paying over $60 per month for my Verizon landline, so I figured if I could get 99% up-time from this new @Home service for just $10 per month, it would be worth it. So I signed up, which took a while because, as I soon found out after saying to the sales guy, “Sign me up!”, that I in fact was the first person at that store to sign up for the service.

I have had Tmobile cell service for about 1.5 years now and have liked the service. The website is great and they seem to be on the up-and-up, so I took a calculated risk.

So, here’s the scoop:

Costs:

~$35 activation fee for the new phone number/line

My sales rep failed to mention this fee, which pisses me off but, quite frankly, I would have agreed to it anyway.

~$50 for a LinkSys router. I’ll post more details on the router later, but that is the one thing about the @Home service that there is a good bit of info on the net on.  I was using a D-Link Wireless router that had ‘Draft N’ status, so downgrading from the 802.11N to 802.11G was something I was disappointed with. Supposedly you can just connect both routers (and I have a 4-port switch laying around doing nothing to facilitate this) or chain them to the broadband source, but quite frankly I didn’t want to mess around with that. At least not during this ‘trial’ period. And besides, my wife is the only one who uses the wireless currently at my house and she’s using Ubuntu on her laptop with a wireless G card, so the N was going to waste anyway. The range of the D-Link wasn’t all that great either, so I figured I’d go with the LinkSys. Speeds seem no different to her after the switch. I can tell you that the ‘strength’ level of the wireless signal coming from the D-Link was ~34% usually, whereas the signal level from the Tmobile Linksys was just over 50% yesterday. So that was better at least.

The router certainly is much more aesthetically pleasing too : ) It has lots of lights and is cool-looking, for what that’s worth (nothing). I’ve been running it since yesterday and no drops, no problems. It has 4 ethernet ports and 2 landline ports for you to hookup your phones. Any phone can be hooked up to it (well, I suppose rotary phones can’t). I hooked up an old wireless phone base/handset that I had in my basement to it (more about why below) and it worked flawlessly. Sound quality was great and it works just like a regular phone – when you pick it up you even hear a dial-tone like a regular landline phone. I walked upstairs to my bedroom, which is at the farthest point in my house from the router, which is in my new ‘family room’ (that’s code for our recently finished basement!), and the sound quality and volume level did not change. I was worried about that and was pleasantly surprised.

Some folks on the Broadband Reports website forum, which to date is the only decent source of info I could find about this service prior to buying it, have asked me to check if the outgoing caller ID lists my name when I call another landline from the @Home phone. I’ll try that tonight and report back with a new post here.

My current landline is with Verizon, and I use Verizon DSL. I have loved the DSL (I had Comcast broadband for a couple of years, which sucked – major lag/variance in bandwidth) and have had a solid connection with no downtime for about 5 years now. 1.5mb down steady. Maybe more now, haven’t checked in a while. I am going to run some tests using the @Home service and downloading a torrent or other large file at the same time to see how things are affected. If anyone has any tips/suggestions on how to best run some valid ‘tests’ I’d love to hear them.

Well, so far I’m happy. But I’ll tell you this: I haven’t initiated the porting of my current landline number yet. I’m gonna wait one more day then start the process, which supposedly takes at least 6 days, if not 10.

My main hurdle at this point is my telephones.  I have 3 ‘levels’ to my house – the basement, main floor, and upstairs. Since the basement was recently finished, I didn’t get a new phone for down there so I’ve been ‘phoneless’ down there from a landline perspective. In our living room is a great Motorla wireless base/handset that my wife won in some contest, and upstairs is a piece of garbage $9 phone. My problem is this: my @Home router is on my computer desk in my basement. I am not going to re-rig phone lines around so that I can plug the Motorola from my living room into the router, and since I want to get a new phone base with 2 handsets anyway so all 3 floors can be covered, I’m going to stop at the Tmobile store to investigate the VTech phones they are selling. IIRC, for about $100 I can get the base and 2 handsets. The key concer/question for me is this: if I set the base up on my PC desk in the basement,  no one will be able to see whether a new voicemail has arrived unless the handsets have some sort of flashing indicator on them. Hopefully they do. If not, I’ll have to find a set of phones that do work that way. And if that won’t work, I’ll re-think the setup of the @Home wiring. I can do it, I’m just too busy to do that these days. Also, allegedly, TMobile claims that the VTECH phones they are recommending/selling also include some special features/buttons specific to the @Home service. So, we’ll see. I’ll report back.

UPDATE 07.17.08: I’m noticing that many folks are coming directly to this post via the TMobile@Home website (which has linked directly to this post).

Please note that I have added some more posts regarding the @home service. Click here to view them.