hotspot honey

Up until yesterday, I’d been — rather happily — using the same wireless phone and service plan for more than four years. But last week, I noticed that I'd gotten dangerously close to running over my monthly allotment of minutes, something that had never happened before. I knew my increased phone usage was likely to continue, so I started looking around at upgrading.

Now I’ve got a “bigger” plan, a brand new phone and am making free calls over WiFi.

I've messed around a bit with T-Mobile's HotSpot @ Home — a $10/month non-contractual add-on. My new handset, a Nokia 6086, connected to my home wireless network very easily. No need for a new router; my Airport Express from Apple does the job just fine. All I had to do was enter my network password, and I was good to go. My home network is now saved in my phone, so it connects automatically whenever I'm here; no need to keep logging on.

Calls do sound clearer on my end, and I'm not having to walk around to make sure I'm close to a window to get the best reception. Reception inside the house had become a real issue in the past couple of weeks, and it’s no fun trying to conduct an interview with someone when you’re having trouble hearing each other. Using the new phone on WiFi, I tested the phone last night with a friend of mine, and even she commented on how clear and crisp my voice sounded.

So far, so good.

Of course, I wasn't thrilled about having to manually enter my contact list from the old phone to the new one. There was some screw up with data transfer from the really old SIM card to the new one, and by the time I figured out I needed to go back to the store to have them fix it, they'd closed for the evening.

So I came home and messed around some more.... I think it might be an issue between how Sony Ericsson and Nokia manage contact information, as it's pretty different from one model to the next. (Personally, I like my old SE's presentation and organization a good bit better.)

But contact entering only took about 30 minutes or so, as I discovered there were plenty of outdated contacts that I no longer needed. Not that big a deal, but still a pain. And, I'll have to get all new accessories and adapters, since SE and Nokia use entirely different connection ports. Of course.

... Later night update ...
I've made and received a few more calls now on this WiFi/network hybrid. I'm still mostly liking it, though I'm not crazy about the split-second drop-out on the call as it's making its switch from network to hotspot, or vice versa. This has happened a few times as I've moved around the house while talking, though neither my sister nor my friend, Terri, appeared to notice.

My wireless network has been blinking out a bit, which the cause of the problem. I'm not sure if it's an issue with Airport Express, as it looks like the cable modem is the more likely culprit.