Blackberry 8320 & T-Mobile’s HotSpot@home Service: A Closer Look

T-mobile recently upgraded its mobile service by providing the so-called HotSpot@home subscription which allows a mobile subscriber to initiate calls utilizing a wi-fi connection at home, and in turn making unlimited calls that doesn’t use up the subscribers monthly minute allowance. This service also allows the subscriber to be connected to hotspots nationwide. With the service your mobile provider automatically connects you to the network in range whether it’s a hotspot or a regular cellular network at home or on the road for uninterrupted mobile service. Indeed, it is an ingenious idea if only it is perfected.

I live in a slightly elevated area and so my cell phone signal is constantly absent. In fact I cannot initiate a call if I’m at home, so with T-mobile’s new offering, a new hope dawned on me that I can have a reliable connection while at home.

With the HotSpot@home service, mobile calls can be made using existing wireless signals from your local network through UMA (unauthorized mobile access). And since the service requires a HotSpot@home enabled cell phone, I decided to say goodbye to my T-mobile Wing phone and upgraded my used-to-be Blackberry-less mobile life to a Blackberry-ful one. It was about time to see what a Blackberry can do compared to my previous mobile phones.

First off, the good things about the Blackberry 8320. It is smaller in size compared to its other Blackberry predecessors and more lightweight. It uses a mini trackball for multidirectional and easy manipulation of programs and files or messages in your message folder. It has a camera with a built-in flash at an adjustable capture range. It has a media player that can play several kinds of media files. It is wi-fi and Bluetooth enabled. It allows data transmission using GPRS/EDGE, edge, GSM, UMA, uma signals. It has voice dialing. And it is designed to work with your wireless network for free unlimited mobile calls at home after subscribing to T-mobile’s Hotspot@home service.

The bad. It has no video capture feature. Another bad thing is the fact that the blackberry is a blackberry, thus, there maybe some mobile tools that you like and have gotten used to with your other mobile phones that run on a windows mobile platform which you cannot run on the Blackberry 8320. A good example is YahooGo, a mobile application that provides maps & navigation, weather, instant messaging, etc. No matter how many times I tried, this application was never able to successfully run on my Blackberry 8320. There was always an error at startup. So I guess there are possibly a few bugs that need to be fixed.

Another application that I love so much that I also was not able to work successfully on the Blackberry 8320 is the Avantgo mobile service. Surprisingly though, I was able to download and successfully run the mobile version of Windows Live Search.

One thing to note is, if you want to make use of the full functionality of this cell phone, you should be ready to pay for the extras like subscribing to the Hotspot@home service as well as the Blackberry unlimited e-mail service provided by T-mobile. This is good if the service is really a necessity for you, but for people who just want to explore the technology, think twice.


The Hotspot@home service is supposed to allow an easy handover from your Unauthorized Mobile Access Network (UMAN) to your cellular network so there is no discernable service interruption. However, the technology probably is still too raw and not yet perfected because on several occasions, I have initiated a call using UMA and was cut in the middle of a conversation because somehow my signal went from UMA to EDGE. Even with a good wireless connection at home, surprisingly the device shifts from UMA to EDGE and even to GSM transmission modes constantly & intermittently. That I find really unappealing because once this occurs, the medium of communication is disrupted which is quite not what this technology is meant to do.

Now what exactly is the difference between these kinds of signal transmission? You can find the answers by visiting T-mobile’s information page. But here’s a quick comparison. UMA signals allow you to make voice calls for free, allowing GSM & GPRS transmissions through your local/at home network which is first authenticated by your mobile service provider’s UMA Network Controller. If you require high-speed data transmission like browsing the internet, you’re better off with an EDGE connection because it is an enhanced form of GPRS and is sometimes referred to as 3G. GPRS is more or less a slight variation of EDGE, which still allows data transmission but at a slower bandwidth. A GSM signal is only good for voice calls or text messaging but not for data transmission that requires a bigger bandwidth like internet browsing or video transmission. uma and edge on the other hand, simply indicate that you have the signal but the signal you’re getting is weak.

As soon as I got my Blackberry, I started doing the necessary tweaks and fixes to customize my phone to my style and preference. Of course, I wanted to have my own distinct ring tone so I just moved ring tones from my old phone, a Motorola v3xx simply by putting in the microSD chip from the old phone to Blackberry’s microSD slot. I then copied the ringtone files from the microSD to the device’s ringtone folder and it worked without causing too much headache on my part. Being able to do that is a plus to the Blackberry because some cell phones are really so hard to configure in terms of customizing ring tones.

Then comes setting up the push e-mail. Of course, like I’ve said, you have to subscribe to T-mobile’s Blackberry unlimited e-mail service. Setting up took a while because for some reason, if you are not able to find your way to the service books, you will not find the option to set-up personal mails using your personal e-mail accounts from yahoo, hotmail, gmail, etc. The device is preset for easy setup to your enterprise e-mail server at work but first you need to know certain information that only your system administrator can provide.

Basically once everything else is in place you can manage your device from your desktop using Blackberry’s device manager software and from there you can sync your contacts, calendar, to do list, files and folders.

Overall, the Blackberry 8320 is an excellent phone. The easy user interface provided by the keypad and the mini trackball is a definite plus (but probably not for people with big fingers). I find it really appealing. In fact, once you get used to the feel of the Blackberry, you find it hard to go back to using your other non-Blackberry phones.

If you want to read e-books using your Blackberry, just download the Mobipocket reader and you’re ready to go.

T-mobile’s HotSpot@home service is a good start, but I think the technology could be better.