I think I've just found a killer feature on the Blackberry

I've struggled with mobile reception at home ( on Orange) for years with only certain parts of the house getting a hit and miss reception leading to lots of missed calls, dropping calls failed texts and no hope of internet.

I went to the Orange shop and said I'd had enough and could I have a Pac number or whatever it is to transfer to another network. The young lady said if you get a blackberry you can use the 'uma' feature with your home wifi and make calls etc all over the house.

I was a bit sceptical but she agreed I could take it back if it didn't work so I brought it home, connected it to the wifi and like magic I can make calls all over the house now

I'm not sure how this works but I wonder if it is some sort of IP telephone and the calls are not charged to the mobile network at all but go down the broadband or something?

Anyway it seems pretty cool to me.

Cheers

Mark

so, if its through wifi, do you get all calls texts, etc free? (or were they free on your tariff anyway?)

not really sure yet but the phone actually works indoors now - texts and everything!

Baffled - but pleased

sounds good anyway

i get wifi on my phone (but free gprs interweb anyway)

if it uses the internet connection to send picture messages, i always wondered why i can't use wifi to send them for free lol

info here

http://www.umatechnology.org/overview/

Vodafone are doing something similar now with their new femtocell. Small Mobile Phone base station which connects to your broadband. Cost is around £50 if you have a contract with them. Should work for all phones. Google Vodafone VAG if your interested (£160 without a contract though !)

A bit O/T but I bought the missus an ipod Touch for Xmas. As well as music, etc. it has wifi connection and can run iphone apps, one of which is Skype. We discovered that you therefore make text and voice calls over Skype if you're in range of a wifi point, even though it's not a phone per se

Its a Voip connection Mark the router tells the network your at home and routes your mobile calls directly to you via Voip.
Cheers,
Bob

[Edited on 21/1/10 by splitrivet]

Oh very useful to know

Director struggles with mobile signal strenth at home as he lives out in the sticks we have just purchased him a blackberry so will have to investigate this.

Told him that I need one to test at home so I can support so which blackberries are good on the slim chance he says yes?

Regards

Agriv8

The other bonus is calls made from the WiFi access are free, this includes international calls if the call started from the WiFi access point then roam onto the Orange network proper they continue being free. I think you may be limited to 1000 minutes a month though.
If BT had upgraded all the exchanges when they said they would Voip would have been a nationwide reality by now and features like the above would have been available to all. It is what all the Telecoms company's including my own where waiting for to give the industry a shot in the arm but as usual in this country short termism and lack of investment leave us like a third rate nation.
Cheers,
Bob

I have Orange broadband and land line services in my house.

I can make calls using VOIP to 35 countries in Europe free 24/7. I also have no BT connection so theres no line rental (about £12).

I also get 8mb broadband.

All this costs is £15 month for first 18 months then 24.99 afterwards. Had it for a year and had no telephone bills in that time

I used to spend £20/month on broad band and about £80 quarter on telephones. So about £47/month, so saves me a bit of cash.