It is one of those things that make you ask the question: what took you so long, guys? If you are a T-Mobile USA subscriber and use one of the mobile phones that support UMA, now all your calls made over the Wi-Fi are free. Earlier, all Wi-Fi-based calls counted towards your minute plan, but not anymore.
TMONews.com reported the news last week, and today Kineto Wireless (the company that makes UMA-based systems) confirmed the news in an email newsletter. Although T-Mobile hasn’t issued a press release on the news, a representative from the carrier sent us the following statement with the details:
T-Mobile is excited to expand our Wi-Fi Calling feature, a unique and valuable service T-Mobile has been offering customers for over three years. Starting today, T-Mobile customers can add Free Wi-Fi Calling to their rate plan – at no additional charge – to place calls over Wi-Fi without deducting from their allotment of minutes. This new feature is available at T-Mobile retail stores to all customers on Even More and Even More Plus Postpaid rate plans who have Wi-Fi Calling capable handsets.
The free calling is applicable to the Android phones that have the Smart Wi-Fi app pre-installed and pre-configured for T-Mobile. As a long time fan of Wi-Fi-based calls on T-Mobile, I say this is a great move for T-Mobile. It gives them a good way to hold on to customers defecting to other platforms.
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