T-Mobile Rolls Out Home Phone Plan

T-Mobile will be challenging cable providers, companies like Vonage, and traditional phone companies by offering an unlimited home phone service for $10 a month.

The company announced Wednesday T-Mobile @Home, a service that uses the customer's broadband connection to provide unlimited nationwide calling. The service will be available July 2, and is only available to customers with a T-Mobile subscription, which typically starts at $39.99 a month.

To use the new service, customers need to purchase a $50 wireless router from T-Mobile and sign a two-year service agreement. Users can plug any corded or wireless phone into the router, and then start calling.

In addition to unlimited long-distance domestic calls, users of the @Home service get call waiting, three-way calling, caller ID, and can port their existing number. Customers can also set up CallerTunes, also known as ringback tones.

The company had been testing the service in Dallas and Seattle earlier this year. According to a study done by the company, 97% of customers testing the @Home service dropped their traditional landline phones.

The price point could make this an attractive service, as competitors like Vonage routinely charge more than twice that amount for home phone service. But since this is only available to T-Mobile cell phone subscribers, the potential market may not be that large.

This is not T-Mobile's first foray into the home, as last year it released the HotSpot @Home service. This allowed customers to make calls that could switch back and forth between cellular and Wi-Fi networks.