T-Mobile announces new Talk Forever service for Seattle and Dallas, no home phone now needed
I am quite excited about the possibilities of this service, especially after looking at my current Qwest home phone bill. I currently pay US$52 for basic home phone service with call waiting and caller ID, along with unlimited long distance. US$10 sounds MUCH more attractive to me though, doesn't it? I do have a Monitronics home alarm system and believe I will still need a standard home phone line, but that can be purchased for something like US$15 per month so I could still cut my Qwest bill in half with this new T-Mobile service.
I do have a couple of outstanding questions to get answered by T-Mobile before my wife fully buys off on using T-Mobile as our main home phone service. She is a bit worried about reliability too, but our Comcast cable internet service has been quite reliable. Here are the questions I need to get answered and if any of you know the answers, feel free to leave a comment with the answer:
- Can I trial this service with a given number and then port my existing home phone number if it passes my tests?
- Can you choose just one or the other of the two HotSpot @Home services if you don't want both services?
- Since this is a T-Mobile number, if I call home from my T-Mobile cell are these call free since it is essentially T-Mobile to T-Mobile?
- What is the cost of the router if I don't make a 2-year commitment and are there any minimum service commitments?
- I understand there are some basic phone features included, but what are the specific functions/operations of voicemail (such as can I access my voicemail via the internet, can I have messages email to me, etc?)
- Will adding this service void the grandfathered family text messaging plan I have now (all 4 phones have unlimited text messaging for US$10)?
- Since there is a WiFi router as part of the service, can I also use a VoIP wireless phone too?
- Can I receive incoming faxes or send faxes with this service?
- I heard there are two SIM card slots in the router, what is the second card slot for?
In all likelihood I will be stopping by the T-Mobile store today to pick up this new router and give this service a try. If I do, I will make sure to post lots of photos and all the details here for all of you interested in the service located outside of Seattle and Dallas.