Yes, you can use WiFi even when you can get no cellular service. That's basically exactly the situation UMA was designed for. It works independent of a cellular connection.
what aristile said. When i'm indoors at home or at work, my cell signal is weak. So it automatically switches to UMA since my wifi signal is stronger. However, the quality is slightly worse IMO. Its sorta more static or a robotic type of voice. Not sure if that's just me though.
The sound quality problems are likely settings in your router and/or interference with your connection. Try changing your wireless channel on your router. For more information, check the WiFi Guide link in my signature.
i've gone through that already. got my BB configured according to that. the distortion occurred while i was at work, and i have no control over the router there. might be just a slow connection at work. We are capped at 40KBps. The distorted sound would be consistence with a lowered sound bitrate. Does UMA dynamically change bitrates for phone calls if a slow connection is detected?
at home, i go in and out of UMA so its harder to fully test it. but it has transitioned from uma to cell properly with nothing more than a click sound in between. No distortion here. Although when not on a call, i seem to have a hard time maintaining connection. Not sure if I need need to open ports? Does the BB use ports that are out of the ordinary?
yes it uses minutes just like regular voice plan (ie night and weekend, fave5, m2m still free if applicable).
unless you have TMobile@Home for $10/month, then UMA calls are free.
