AT&T Brings Calling Inside With New Wireless Home Phone

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone that could convince us the landline industry is a growing one. By and large, people are turning to mobile phones (and mobile phones alone) for their calling needs, but that's not stopping wireline providers like AT&T from continuing to milk whatever is left. Verizon actually tried something similar with the ill-fated Hub a few years ago, and now AT&T is introducing the Wireless Home Phone in order to give its customers another option for at-home calling. It's a no-commitment phone with a prepaid service option, which allows AT&T mobile users to complete calls from their existing home phone handset using the AT&T wireless network instead of a landline connection. Customers can keep their existing home phone number and handsets, and Wireless Home Phone is portable so you can take your home phone with you to other locations in the United States.


Wireless Home Phone customers can add their home phone line to an existing FamilyTalk plan for $9.99 per month or choose unlimited nationwide calling for $19.99 per month, and the Wireless Home Phone device is free with a two-year commitment.

New, prepaid options for Wireless Home Phone, available beginning March 22, include:

* $20 per month for unlimited, nationwide calling.
* $15 per month for 1,000 minutes of international long-distance, including wireless and landline numbers in Mexico and calling to over 50 other countries such as Canada, China and India.
* One-time cost of $99.99 for the Wireless Home Phone device.
* Voicemail, caller ID and call waiting are all included at no additional cost

Only time will tell if people are genuinely interested in bolstering their at-home calling options, but one thing's for sure: AT&T sure isn't marketing its MicroCell any longer.