T-Mobile Now Gets WiFi Voice

T-Mobile is finally getting WiFi Voice and candidly, I’m saddened. Not because they are now on the Mobile VoIP bandwagon, but because it has taken them so long to voice their support for it. If there was one mobile operator I would have thought would have embraced it, it was them. You see, for many years they owned the WiFi Hotspot sector and had the best darn network in the ground to support it.

My fond memories of making a call over a Sony Vaio Picturebook running Windows XP and a hacked copy of Windows Messenger that allowed me to make a call using the SIP stack inside the Windows OS via Webley with their CTO who had early on been experimenting with a VoIP service that never saw the light of day was done in the Del Mar Starbucks, one of the first T-Mobile Hotspots I ever sipped and surfed at.

But alas, T-Mo has pretty much given up the ghost on WiFi, allowing the Starbucks contract to fall to AT&T in the USA, and pretty much doing the same thing in the UK, cooling their jets on the hotspot sector, and focusing on 3G build outs.

Mobile VoIP works. These stats of 1.6 million CALLS per month, not minutes are impressive, and when you add in calls over WiFi that people make using Truphone (a client), Skype, Counterpath’s Bria (also a client) Line2 and others on mobile devices or on laptops from coffee shops, hotel lobbies and at conferences and conventions, you realize that WiFi works very well for calling.

Personally, a Boingo Hotspot for me, and Truphone or Skype on my iPhone or iPod, and yes, my lovely iPad (sorry Alec) pretty much means I don’t need a mobile to make or receive a call. Right now GoogleVoice can pretty much reach them all, and with some SIP magic, even call the Truphone enabled endpoints in a manner similar to Skype.

So now T-Mobile is on the Mobile VoIP bandwagon and trumpeting it’s value. I say. “Welcome to the Club.”