Thanks to Virgin Media who have rolled out wifi on the underground, if you have a smartphone which supports UMA, you can now use your smartphone on the underground to make calls and texts!

Most Blackberry's have UMA.

Switch on Wifi and UMA should automatically start.

Virgin Media wifi is free for Virgin Media,EE,Orange,T-Mobile and Vodafone customers.

It's been out for a while.

When it first came out and so not as widely known about as now - at least to tourists - I found it childishly amusing to make calls with my Skype App and then watch all the puzzled faces out of the corner of my eye. I imagine some of them thought I was some kind of mental patient who was hearing imaginary voices on my mobile.

Never thought of using UMA for calls and stuff, but i use the wifi on the underground all the time. was using it at bethnal green the other day and its FAST!

love using the wifi on the underground. Really helps when you have a while to wait for your train and also for me when I'm on my way home and I need updates on the footie

I only discovered Orange UMA while using wifi on the underground, I got a call whilst waiting for a train and was crystal clear

Apologies for being thick, but what is UMA? Does it work on the iPhone? I ask because, oddly enough, I have one!

what phone u got?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_Access_Network

It's a way of allowing a phone to access a mobile network via e.g. WiFi.

The iPhone doesn't support it.

You could at least try Skype or Facetime via LU's WiFi, but of course that only works if you want to talk to someone who also has Skype or Facetime.

Not if you have Skype credit, no problem calling normal phones, I do it all the time

Ah, good point.

I was a bit amused by the email I got from Virgin Media advertising the underground wifi. I received this today the 9th January 2013 -

"Free WiFi has been a huge success on the London Underground. In fact, since it launched, over 800,000 people have been tweeting and emailing underground. And we're adding another 48 WiFi-enabled stations by next Spring - which includes 20 new stations going live in December. It will also remain free for everyone until January next year."

I read that as saying it is free until January 2014 - can we legally hold them to that ?

iPhone users can just use Viber

Blackberry Bold, it works on most Blackberry handsets including Curves.

It is available on many smartphones when using Orange,EE and T-Mobile, for a list go to the Orange shop website and read the phone specification and features. Not too sure about Vodafone and 3.

When reception fails or when at home and where there is no network coverage, your phone will use a wifi connection as a signal.

No additional fees and calls come out of your minutes as usual. It is slightly similar to how BT Fusion and Cable and Wireless Smart talk works.

you could use Zello but is push to talk

www.zello.com
Zello for iPhone
Zello for Android
Zello for BlackBerry
Zello for PC

No these things require others to have the same app installed. We're talking about normal calls out of your Orange allowance or automatically receiving inbound calls, that's totally different to a push to talk app.

Never understood why Push to talk didn't hit it off in the UK... it was great in the states. Like a long distance walkie talkie.

So can every other smartphone user!

There's a key difference between being able to make and receive calls without the other person needing to have the same app running though.

So you could receive a call from the bank or make a call to a friend with a non smartphone, that's where UMA or operator apps like Tu-Me really come in useful. You can't compare that to Skype etc

So what handsets does it work on then? Just blackberry?

edit: ah android phones with Orange bloatware on them can do it too. Hmmm...not worth it!