Can someone shed some light on voice over wifi?

[Techie333]

So my sis was talking about getting a pda phone since she's a new resident at a hospital. I wanted to get her a pda phone; she was looking at the hp ipaq hw6940 or hw6945. She was mostly concerned about this supposed voice over wifi thing that some people do at her hospital where they don't use minutes to talk over the wifi network? I recently got several tmobile wings with a fam plan and was wondering if they can be used for the same thing instead. She said she saw someone with the hp ipaq that can do the voice over wifi thing. Can someone explain what this feature is and which phones/networks can support it? Thanks a bunch in advance!

 

[uli2000]

I do it with skype. Pretty easy, the skype software for windows mobile is free, and you can call any skype contact for free, just like you can on pc. Calls to other numbers are like 2 cents/min for alot of contries, though there is a unlimited us/canada option for $40/yr. I believe the wing has wifi, so all you would need is to download the skype software and install it. Couple of things, if you dont have an unlimited data plan, make sure you set the skype to use wifi only. Id hate to think what your carrier would charge you for a call at 2 cents/kb. Also, many carriers have voip services againts TOC for cellular data, and you could get your phone shut off for it. But you wont have to worry about that if you use it on wifi only. Also, on my ppc6700, my skype calls only seem to come in over the speakerphone or bluetooth only, so if you arnt using a bluetooth headset, I wouldnt have a conversation where anyone else could hear it. Plus on my 6700, I get occasional dropouts on skype. Make sure you have a spare battery or access to a charger, because wifi will drain your battery in a few hours.

There are also softphone clients that can be used with vontage, sunrocket, packet8, and other voip providers, but I dont use any of those myself.

 

[uli2000]

More info from Skype:

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/mobile/

 

[Techie333]

Thanks for the info uli2000, but I believe she was referring to something else besides accessing voip service over the wifi? Anyone know of such a thing? In fact, it may not even be wifi, it may just be a service in that hospital if anyone knows of such services in limited areas such as hospitals? Thanks!

 

[Inspector Jihad]

tmobile has a new plan where the call automatically and seamlessly switches from the network to wi-fi if the wifi is free. wifi calls are free, if you make a call in wifi and switch to the network the call is still free.

 

[uli2000]

Oh yeah, dont they call it homezone or something like that? I thought it was still being tested and is only in limited markets. I also heard there were problems with handoffs between wifi to wifi (diffrent networks) and wifi to cellular.

NM, I found it. Its called Tmo@home, and lauches offically today

http://www.boygeniusreport.com...a-continues/#more-1186