T-Mobile Un-Carrier 7.0 is About Use of Wi-Fi

The T-Mobile U.S. Un-carrier 7.0 slogan fundamentally is about, “transforming all available Wi-Fi locations worldwide into extensions of our network,” according to Neville Ray, T-Mobile U.S. chief technology officer.

The slogan refers to value created by extending network coverage, high-definition voice and in-home access points, all tied together by the role of Wi-Fi in the T-Mobile U.S. access architecture.

To be sure, the marketing slogan includes capabilities built on other investments T-Mobile U.S. has made in Long Term Evolution, high definition voice and VoIP calling.

But most important is the role of Wi-Fi in extending the T-Mobile U.S. network and its key features (voice, messaging and Internet access).

“In the age of the mobile Internet and interconnected devices, you simply can’t ignore the Wi-Fi connection,” said Neville Ray, T-Mobile US CTO.

“Now for the first time, thanks to our launch of next generation Wi-Fi calling and our use of new capabilities in our evolved Packet Data Gateway (ePDG), we’re providing our customers a seamless HD voice calling experience whether they’re connected to a T-Mobile tower or a Wi-Fi connection,” said Ray. “No other major national carrier is doing this with Wi-Fi calling today.”

What that means is that T-Mobile U.S. customers can use a smartphone to start a call on VoLTE and hand off to a connected Wi-Fi network, or initiate a call on Wi-Fi and then migrate to the T-Mobile US network, seamlessly.

“Your call won’t drop,” said Ray. “You won’t even know you’ve switched between networks.”

The new T-Mobile “Personal CellSpot” is an indoors picocell that acts like a small T-Mobile U.S. cell site, boosting signal quality indoors.

“We added some T-Mobile secret sauce, our VoLTE (Voice over Long Term Evolution) magic and worked closely with our partner to ensure T-Mobile voice calls over Wi-Fi are prioritized, with seamless and simple setup and support,” said Ray.

The $25 personal Wi-Fi hotspot uses any fixed broadband connection to create a small area of mobile coverage indoors.

“On top of all that, our patent-pending quality of service feature is designed so that T-Mobile voice calls maintain their clarity − no matter how much streaming music, video or games are coming through the T-Mobile Personal CellSpot.”