Nice Try T-Mobile

OK, I am biased since I am an investor in Sipphone/Gizmo Project but this service from T-Mobile sounds pretty lame.  The "breakthrough offering" from this carrier is that you can make calls on your mobile handset and seamlessly switch between T-Mobile’s cellular network and your home network.  The catch is that you have to pay an extra $20 a month to use the service and you are locked in to using your home network or in the future a T-Mobile hotspot.  Unless you are making tons of international calls from home, that doesn’t sound like a breakthrough.  You are better off saving that $240 annually and using that to buy a Nokia n80 or n95 device which has dual mode capabilities but in a completely open format.  OK, it doesn’t offer seamless handoffs between cellular and wifi but it does allow you to make VOIP calls from any wi-fi network and all you have to do is buy minutes from GizmoVOIP which is integrated in the  phone.  In the near future consumers will be able to leverage the full power of web-based communications as presence, IM, and buddy lists get built into the device.  Once again, I know that carriers have to protect their huge investment in infrastructure, but how long will consumers stand for exorbitant pricing on closed networks?