Cell Phone or Home Phone Service?

Today approximately 80 percent of households still have a landline.

Cell Phone or Landline?

On the surface, T-Mobiles new offering can simply be viewed as simple and compelling.

Though its not clearly advertised on its Web site, this home phone service isnt landline service.

Itsliketraditionalvoice over Internet protocol(VoIP) service, but still a bit different from it.

Its better to think of T-Mobile @Home asGoIPservice.

Some people [call] it GSM over IP.

Its actually a Linksys router.

Thats a separate fee.

T-Mobile says these rates are the best as compared with other national wireless and landline carriers.

That same call would cost 22 cents per minute on a T-Mobile cell phone.

If you so desire, you could use your current home phone instead or buy another.

In that scenario, youd save $55.78.

Clearly, thats a win.

If its $90 per month, thatd save you $960 per year.

Competing Services

But T-Mobile isnt the only major Internet phone player.

Vonage doesnt provide wireless service, T-Mobile said.

Vonage runs as low as $14.99 per month for 500 local and long-distance minutes.

Vonage then charges 3.9 cents per minute after the first 500 minutes.

T-Mobile @Home has that plan beat by $15 per month.

But remember: so you can have T-Mobile @Home, you also need high-speed cable or DSL.