Now you can use a garden-variety touch-tone phone—yep, even that old phone in the kitchen—with T-Mobile's Net-based @Home calling service. I've been testing a review unit for a week now, and so far, it's worked like a charm—but unless you want to sign a new two-year contract, be prepared to cough up some cash for the hardware.

First, a little background. T-Mobile's $10/month HotSpot @Home service (or, as it's now called, "HotSpot @Home Talk Forever Mobile"—ugh), which launched last summer, lets you make cell calls over your home Wi-Fi connection—or, indeed, any open or T-Mobile-branded hotspot.

It's a handy service for anyone who gets crummy cell reception in their homes—and even better, @Home calls over Wi-FI don't deduct any minutes from your monthly allowance. Of course, one drawback of the HotSpot @Home service is that it only works with select UMA-enabled handsets (which let you roam seamlessly between Wi-Fi and cellular networks) on T-Mobile, such as the BlackBerry Curve.

Anyway, the new "T-Mobile @Home" service (confusing, I know) still uses your broadband connection, but instead of just letting you make calls on your @Home-enabled cell phone, you can also hook up any touch-tone phone for unlimited calls. Think Vonage, except you're getting Internet service that piggybacks onto your cell phone plan.

To use the new service (available starting July 2), you'll need a special Wi-Fi router from T-Mobile that comes with a pair of standard telephone jacks. Each jack counts as a separate line, with separate phone numbers (and yes, you can transfer your old landline number if you wish), and you'll need a T-Mobile SIM card for each line.

Setup was dead easy—I just attached the router's power cord, installed the included SIM card into the appropriate slot, plugged in my broadband Ethernet cable, and finally plugged my phone into the router. (T-Mobile sells a $60 VTech touch-tone system—complete with two wireless handsets—to go with @Home, but again, any touch-tone phone will work.) Once the router is up and running, you can set up wireless security options (such as WPA encryption) over your PC.

The call quality I got over @Home was excellent, with no break-ups and little or no lag; that said, your mileage will vary depending on the speed of your broadband connection.

The new @Home router goes for $49 with a two-year contract, giving you unlimited calling for $10 a month on your new @Home "landline." (A second line costs an additional $10 a month.) You can also get the router without a contract, but you'll need to cough up $100 extra, for a total of $149—pricey for a wireless router, even one with a couple of telephone jacks. Either way, you'll need a standard T-Mobile cellular voice plan to sign up.

A few other notes: You can use @Home as your landline even if you're not using a T-Mobile UMA-enabled cell phone; if you do want to use both, however, you'll pay $10 a month for the HotSpot @Home cell service and another $10 for each @Home landline.

Also, standard features like caller ID, voice mail, and call waiting come free with at home, and 911 dispatchers will be able to pull up your home address as long as you register it with T-Mobile.

Overall, the new T-Mobile @Home service for standard phones looks like a pretty good deal if you're still hanging onto your landline, especially considering that $10 a month gets you unlimited minutes. If I still had a landline—and still had T-Mobile as my carrier, for that matter—I'd probably ditch my landline and spring for it myself.

That said, if you're already using @Home with, say, a UMA-enabled BlackBerry Pearl from T-Mobile, I'm not sure why you'd want to pay an extra $10 a month for landline service—unless you're married to your old landline number.

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