T-Mobile lands Nokia, Samsung phones with Wi-Fi

T-Mobile very early on Monday said it has begun carrying two phones built to use its HotSpot@Home Wi-Fi calling service. The Nokia 6301 bar phone and the Samsung t339 clamshell both supply Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) that lets them bridge between the cellular network and a Wi-Fi hotspot; either can save phone minutes by calling from a Wi-Fi network and automatically hand over the call to the GSM phone network without consuming time on a normal voice plan or suffering the drop-outs that happen with cellphones indoors.

Nokia's device is the more advanced of the two and builds in a 2-megapixel camera as well as microSD card support up to 4GB and an FM radio; the Samsung model uses a 1.3-megapixel camera and caps its microSD cards at 2GB. Both are available later today online and in T-Mobile retail shops, with pricing to be revealed at the same time.