A Honest Review of T-Mobile's Hot Spot @ Home Service

Around the time of the I Phone launch, T-Mobile came out with what the New York Times said was the best product of our time; The T-Mobile Hot Spot @ Home. T-Mobile's Hot Spot @ Home service is not a rate plan in itself, but an add on to your current rate plan. This service is supposed to provide unlimited calling on any public Wf-Fi network, and perfect signal. When it first debuted it was 9.99 for a single line, and 19.99 for a family plan.

I personally have this service, and I have an honest and upfront review of the product. First I would first like to tackle the handsets and equipment. The service is only available on 3 handsets at this point. The first to be available was a Nokia 6068 which is a flip phone with camera, memory card slot, Bluetooth, music player, and an FM radio. The next phone was a small Samsung t409 flip phone with a 1.3 mega pixel camera, no memory card option, and Bluetooth. The last handset option is a Blackberry Curve which boasts two color options gold or silver, all Blackberry functions, Bluetooth, 2 mega pixel camera, music player, and memory card slot. The handsets available are functional enough, but with only three options it is very limiting to the consumer. Also the service requires that you have a router for it to function, which is perfectly acceptable. The problem with the router is that you cannot use your own and still have good results. T-Mobile had to have Linksys make a special router for the service that will cost you 49.99. The company claims to give a rebate for the router, but I have yet to receive mine after 3 months.

Price is another issue, as I stated before, when the service first came out along side the I Phone, it was 9.99 and 19.99. Now that the service has been available, and not as successful as T-Mobile had hoped for, the price has gone up. The price is now 19.99 for a single line, and 29.99 for a family plan. I can see this being a beneficial product for people that have only cell phones and no home phones, or families with teenagers that talk on the phone more than any normal person should, but this pricing is crazy for a flopping product. The only way I can see paying this much for a product at the new rate would be if you constantly go over your minutes more than the twenty or thirty dollars that the service costs.

Availability is another down fall for the product, not everyone is allowed to have it on their plan. The plan is not available to people of certain credit classes. T-Mobile has what they call "Smart Access" Accounts. This is an account created for people with less than perfect credit that didn't ask for a deposit, but has a spending limit and a limit on features. The company also has "Flex Pay". On this program you pay for your rate plan in advance, and have the option of not having a contract. This plan also limits your feature availability. The company is cutting down on its own customer base, and that is ridiculous. The service is ran through high-speed cable, DSL, or satellite internet, so people without it, cannot have the Hot Spot @ Home service.

Reliability is a huge issue with this service. I have not found this service to be totally reliable. There are days where it works fantastically, and then there are days it doesn't work at all. The handsets are supposed to switch from cell tower usages to Hot Spot @ Home service seamlessly; however a call is dropped during the switch 7 out of 10 times.

The biggest issue I have had with this service is billing. My first month with the service my bill was normal, my second month the bill was out of control. I gave a phone to my teenage daughter, who of course talked for days. I don't think I saw her put the phone down once. Keep in mind the Hot Spot @ Home service is unlimited. Each time a call was made from home the phone screen said T-Mobile Hot Spot so the call was supposed to be free. We got charged international rates for every call made on our Hot Spot @ Home service. It took 2 months, 4 trips to the store, and probably a million calls to customer care to get the billing fixed.

Over all I would say that at this point in the time the service isn't worth the hassle and the limited selection of phones.