(americannetwork)T-Mobile USA is set to launch by year's end a new breed of mobile phones that can pass live phone calls between cellular and Wi-Fi networks, an Associated Press report said.
The Associated Press report however said Robert Dotson, CEO of the US subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, declined to disclose the specific market where T-Mobile planned to introduce the technology, known as UMA, reports Trend.
But he did say it would likely be "a city near and dear to our hearts," a likely reference to the company's home city of Seattle, according to the Associated Press report.
UMA is designed to hand off calls without interruption from a cell network to a Wi-Fi router, or vice versa. If a user arrives home while talking on a cell phone and the handset detects a Wi-Fi broadband connection in the house, the call is automatically switched to the wireless Internet signal.
The only difference is that the call is then transmitted using VoIP.
T-Mobile has previously acknowledged it was testing UMA, which can help ease the burden on the limited call capacity of a cellular network while also providing users a stronger wireless signal when they're inside a building, the report said.