It appears T-Mobile may have more up its sleeve for its HotSpot @Home service than just giving you Wi-Fi capable cell phones.

For those unfamiliar with the product line, HotSpot @Home is a group of T-Mobile phones that work off the UMA technology.  Essentially, this allows a cell phone to leave a cellular network and continue the call on an open Wi-Fi network such as the one in your house.  The time spent on the broadband Internet connection does not count against your minutes.

Recently photos showed up on the FCC website of a new Linksys router that was branded with the HotSpot logo, but had two mysterious phone jacks in addition to the usual CAT 5 ports.  The question that comes to mind immediately is “Why?”

The main theory circulating is that T-Mobile may be expanding the coverage to VoIP service also, but mum is the word so far from both T-Mobile and Linksys.  The fact that the device also sports slots for two SIM cards adds to the mystery.

If this does turn out to be a VoIP extension of the service, this will be another step by the big T to move deeper in to our homes and challenge the traditional phone companies. 

For now, the device carries the name WRTU54G, and we will be sure to keep an eye on this device to see what it turns out to be.

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Entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 8:53 am under Cell phones.

Read more entries by Sean P. Aune.
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