I'm Cellular

Stash the Gear; Keep your Home Uncluttered

Prefer to stash the router and network gear someplace,
and leave your residence/office uncluttered?
Solution: Place the @Home Router anywhere you have a phone jack.

This has the benefit of allowing one to connect more than one phone to the router via existing, home wiring. I recommend it, as it leaves the gear tucked away where you want it, and keeps your home uncluttered.

How To Do It:
Basically, you get to choose where you’d prefer to have the equipment (DSL, @Home router, and any other gear such as a network storage, backup drive, Apple Time Capsule, whatever).

Let’s say you get Internet service using a DSL that comes into your home: you can choose to locate the DSL modem and associated gear anywhere that there is a telephone jack (for the “line” that carries that DSL signal). Let’s say that you want to place the DSL modem and related gear next to a wall jack that is in your basement (as I did), so that all of the gear is out of sight, but undisturbed. So just move it! Take your existing gear and plug it in a different wall jack … and it will work the same!

Just be sure to connect everything as it was originally. You may wish to label cables for where they attach, or you can get a friend to help you move everything without disconnecting anything (rather like group juggling).

Where you choose to locate your gear is up to you! You do not need to have the Internet connection wherever the installer placed it originally, with a single phone hanging off of the @Home “Phone” port. I moved all of my gear to the basement since it was cluttering and heating up my home office. Now I have all of the network gear on a table, with plenty of room (no ducking under desks to reboot or rearrange).

For suggestions about how to connect multiple phones, see the related page, “Multiple phones a ringin’.”

Porting Dos and Don’ts (Keeping your existing Phone Number)

For convenience, you may wish to retain your existing telephone number that you use for business and move it over to @Home service (where all of your calls are free within the U.S.). Just (1) activate @Home and the Phone1 port and then (2) port over residential DN to @Home. Note: If you use DSL, before activating @Home using your residence’s DSL, be sure that you logically separate the DSL service from the number that you wish to port. You want to retain your DSL service while you delete your wireline service (leaving you with a “Dry Loop” or “Standalone DSL <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_DSL> “). Here’s an example to avoid: You use number (303) 555-1212 with DSL service from your wireline provider, set up @Home and then ask to port your number to T-Mobile (to use with @Home). Oops! When the line ports, the wireline provider may disconnect the DSL service that is associated with your residential DN, leaving you with no DSL and no @Home service for that number.

T-Mobile @Home: Things you’ll Like and Dislike

Simple Install, Good Value, Excellent Quality Audio
@Home is simple to install, easy to use, provides excellent-quality audio for wireless and wired devices, and is a smokin’ deal ($10 for all you can eat wireless and wireline calling in your home with a strong feature bundle that replaces over $100 of wireline cost per month: a $1,000 savings per year for me). This opinion is consistently shared among the numerous reviews that I have read. It is rare for a service to be so simple that all you have to do is connect it to your network and it comes up live, but that is the typical experience of users. Ethernet in, phone cord out, and you’re pretty much done! Life should be so easy; my mom could install this service in her home.

Features You May Miss
Although @Home includes nearly everything that you could need for only $10/month (Caller ID with Calling Name Display, Call Waiting, 3-Way Calling, Call Forwarding, Voice Mail, International LD at reasonable rates, option for 2 lines), there are a couple of features that I missed from my wireline service:

• FAX transmission
  @Home’s VoIP service does not support transmission of FAX (although other VoIP services, such as Vonage, do support FAX). Only occasionally do I need to send a FAX, so this is a minor inconvenience. If one really needed FAX service, then they could sign up for an inexpensive Internet FAX service <http://www.faxcompare.com/>. Alternatively, if you or a friend are still connected to wireline phone service, you can move your FAX machine and connect it there. Distinctive ringing will allow the FAX machine to share the line with regular voice traffic, so that the FAX machine only intrudes and answers calls that are dialed to that specific, “distinctive” number. UPDATE: FAX Support (for incoming/outgoing facsimile transmissions) is coming in Summer 2009, so this will no longer be a feature you may miss. Read more on this upcoming feature here.
  
• Inexpensive International Calling  <– Now Available
  T-Mobile has reasonable rates but not as good as you can get with special packages for folks that call internationally often. No biggie for most users, since you are probably saving around $100/month from your wireline service. UPDATE: You can get dirt cheap International rates, for those of us that make a lot of international calls each month, and it is available as an inexpensive T-Mobile feature for less than $5/month (which you’ll recoup on your first international call or two).

“For just $5 a month more, T-Mobile @Home International Discounted Calling
gives you the best international calling rates of any national wireless/wireline
carriers†, with rates starting as low as 5 cents a minute to Europe and includes
unlimited calls to Puerto Rico.” [from the @Home FAQ]