My T-Mobile UMA Experience and My CDMA Data Experience

Traveling to Seoul Korea meant that being savvy and frugal with my mobile usage. I took along a battery of phones, but really at the end of the day ended up using my RIM Blackberries to stay connected most of the time.

Sure I used the Nokia E71 with Truphone, but I wanted to put the RIM Blackberry Curve through its paces with UMA in a part of the world where broadband is like water and air. And when I say broadband, I mean blazing fast, no latency broadband, where WiFi is one of the standard ways of staying connected.

The RIM Blackberry Curve with UMA via T-Mobile performed like a champ. The connectivity was super fast, and the call quality better than what I get back in the USA. Given the fact that this is a route around roaming charges, the approach couldn't be beat, as the minutes fall under my "unlimited" plan from T-Mobile in the USA.

For email though I had to use the RIM Worldphone that has Verizon as the carrier. Being CDMA it was an easy connection to whatever network was available, and while the Curve was great on WiFi, without any GSM to latch onto, when out and about, it was not much help. The Worldphone was though and I never missed an email.

The bottom line is simply this. With some planning you can stay very connected, without a lot of hassle.

Comments

[Michael Tribolet]

I've been using the T-Mobile UMA since I moved to Amsterdam in Feb 2009 from NJ and it has been FANTASTIC.... Since I spend 90% of my time between the office and home, it works seamlessly for me. And I can confirm when using the UMA my bill has been static since it doesn't count against my minutes in the plan. This allows me when I come back to the USA for work to feel connected and not have to worry about roaming fees. Also my contacts can still get a hold of me. Now if they can incorporate a lot of those Google Voice features to better control my experience while traveling it would make life just a little bit easier!

[twitter.com/timrand]

I used UMA on T-Mo for a couple of years, traveling heavily overseas. This service really rocks. At my home of the time, I had poor cell service, but I could roam into my Wi-Fi hotspot at home seamlessly and it just worked. The service seemed to improve my battery life, give great call clarity and an ability to make calls where I would otherwise have had none.

Blackberry Curve