Two months ago, I wrote a post about T-Mobile's VoIP service, @Home. I said I'd follow-up and let you all know how I felt about the product after a month or two of use. Well, I like it a lot. But not for the reasons I was initially attracted to it. Take a minute to check out this page and see if the product can save you any money on international calls. It hasn't done so for me, but the additional line has paid off in other ways.
Instead of having two separate plans, each with their own minutes, my wife and I now share a family minute plan. That cut $50 from our bill. We pay $10 a month for @Home, so that's a savings of $40. I haven't had any overage fees since getting @Home. Which, as I said in the earlier post, were averaging me $30 a month. So all things considered, @Home saves me about $70 a month.
We've learned to use the landline for all outgoing calls while home. The service works as it should; no complaints there. The calls are of good quality, and none have been dropped. So now the challenge is getting people to call the landline when we're in. If only there were a way to transfer calls automatically. Oh wait, There is!
Dialing **21*number# forwards any and all calls to the specified number. Anycut for Android makes this a one-press-on one-press-off operation. But it's easy enough to create those contacts on any phone. Conditional forwarding tips can be found here. Remember that each T-Mo plan comes with 500 forwarding minutes. That's been good enough for me. But be careful. Exceed the 500-minute "bucket" and overage fees apply. Minutes forwarding from the landline are unlimited. So if you live alone, it makes sense to hand out your landline number and forward it to your cell when you go out.
My wife and I have been working to eliminate monthly expenses, and $70
is a pretty good chunk of change. You also have to remember that cell
batteries have a limited lifetime. So many charges, and they will no
longer hold one. More long-term savings for us. Most people would get a
nice cordless phone for the landline, but we're doing fine with a $4.97
handset from Wal-Mart. Seriously. We also have a nice new router that
looks cool on my desk.
Verdict: Thumbs up!
