• The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:45 AM

T-Mobile USA is launching a test of an Internet calling plan designed to replace home phone service in two markets today--Seattle and Dallas. Available only to its cell phone customers, participants must buy a $50 Internet router from T-Mobile and pay $10 a month for unlimited local and long-distance domestic calling. They can connect any home phone to the router via a traditional phone cord.

The new home-phone service is an addition to T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home wireless product, which lets customers make unlimited cell phone calls at home on a Wi-Fi Internet connection, for a monthly charge of $10 on top of a regular cellular bill. The move comes the same week three of the nation's largest cell phone companies announced unlimited mobile calling for a flat $100 monthly fee.

Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg calls T-Mobile's new service "disruptive." It will put added pressure on phone companies such as AT&T and Verizon that have already been dealing with consumers' itch to ditch their landlines. About 12% of consumers in a recent Jupiter survey said they expect to drop their land-line service in the next 12 months

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