T-Mobile's VoIP Play

T-Mobile continues their game of cat and mouse with media, turning on two high profile bloggers crossbreed service that works at home by WiFi and on the road using cellular, but not providing any real commentary.

Personally, I've been asking T-Mobile for months about the service, even before what has to be the worst kept secret in VoIP was out in the public sector only to be stonewalled. This is an example of a PR game being played out where the company can claim they never said anything, yet hoping to get coverage. The problem here is the reports are coming out negative so they can claim this is only a trial and they don't comment on trials.

At the end of the day it sounds like T-Mobile wants to play nice in the space, but the service issues need to be addressed first.

Comments

[john]

I bought a Nokia E61, mainly for it's VoIP capability.

I use it with Challenger mobile, available at http://www.challengermobile.com and it works flawlessly. Sound quality is really good.

Challenger's service is SIP-based so I assume it works with many more mobile handsets other than Nokia.

[Account Deleted]

I don't want to increase the coyness factor, but what I wrote in the New York Times was the literal truth: T-Mobile declined to comment for attribution (read that statement carefully), and the reason they cited was that they didn't want to promote the service before a national rollout. That's not the same as declining to comment, and not the same as not providing a reason.

Given my experience with the service, I believe that the company wants more debugging time, and will continue to offer customers who sign up early bizarrely good deals like the one they offered me ($450 to switch from Cingular.)

Now I'm positive they did not know I was a reporter, because I returned the phone to a kiosk and was talking to the manager without him having looked at any of my paperwork (another employee was handling the forms). I didn't identify myself as a reporter, nor am I recognizable. (I had a horrible cold, so even someone who had heard me on local radio wouldn't have known who I was.)

Side note: I returned the phone on Black Friday -- I had timed the 14-day rescission period poorly. But I managed to pick up an HD Radio for $125 at RadioShack ($75 off regular price), which was a boon.