T-Mobile to Launch Wi-Fi Mixed Signal Phone

THE AP -- Oct 6 -- T-Mobile USA is set to launch, by year's end, a new breed of mobile phones that can pass live phone calls between cellular and Wi-Fi networks, a top executive told The Associated Press on Friday. UMA is designed to hand off calls without interruption from a cell network to a Wi-Fi router, or vice versa. So if a user arrives home while talking on a cell phone and the handset detects a Wi-Fi broadband connection in the house, the call is automatically switched to the wireless Internet signal. The only difference is that the call is then transmitted using VoIP. T-Mobile has previously acknowledged it was testing UMA, which can help ease the burden on the limited call capacity of a cellular network while also providing users a stronger wireless signal when they're inside a building. FULL ARTICLE @ THE AP

Mark Brooks: I took a sneak peak at the phone they are planning to roll out from a friend who works at T-Mobile. It's real. Expect to see more Skype and wifi phones rollout in 2007.  Sony's Mylo incorporate Skype, but ignores AOL IM for some strange reason.