Home Phone System That Syncs To Computer? 405
An anonymous reader writes 'In comparison to the advanced technology in today's smart phones, the standard home phone is painfully backwards. My current setup is a Panasonic system that has 4 cordless phones over one base station. Setting the time on one phone changes the time on all the phones; however, this is not the case for the phone book. Each entry must be manually copied (pushed) to each handset. Is this as far as home phone technology has come? What I would like is a phone system that I could sync to my computer so I could update the phone book over all the units (if not sync with Address Book or Outlook), keep a log of caller IDs, or even forward me new voicemail notifications. Does anyone know if such a system exists?'
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
What's a "landline"? :-)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
"What's a "landline"? :-)"
It's the line that always works. A lot of us live in places that still have very poor cellular signals. Most adults have landlines so I'll assume you're young. I'm not knocking your choice, but don't assume that everyone can do without one.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
I have a landline in my house. It has an answering machine [1] attached to it. Attached to the answering machine is a telephone [2] with a spiral cord [3] connecting the handset to the base. No seriously. On the side of the handset there's a volume knob [4] and a switch that selects between "Pulse" and "Tone" [5].
[1] An answering machine is an ancient device that records incoming messages onto a "cassette tape".
[2] A telephone is a device that connects via a "landline" to the switching station or the operator or something like that.
[3] A spiral cord is a strange cord that is perpetually tangled. Used to connect a telephone base to the handset.
[4] A volume knob is an analog electric device that increase or decreases the volume of the earpiece speaker.
[5] Pulse dialing used a series of pulses to generate the digits in a telephone number. Many phones had a place for a "label" where one could insert a written (or typed) phone number list.
God. I feel old.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really no different than email. Who would pay $25/mo for a single email account? And they pay extra to see the "from:" address, or send to multiple recipients, or to send to the next state over, or for a username that isn't just a 10 digit random number?
And yet with Vonage, Comcast VOIP, etc, here we still are.
The Tech That Oughtta Be (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
survived a drop in a toilet and kept on working
Given the relatively low cost of a replacement handset, I can assure you that 99% of all phone owners who drop a handset into the toilet never find out one way or another if the handset survived the experience. But it brings up a question. Do you often talk on the phone at home while using the toilet, and if so do you flush mid-conversation, wait on the toilet until the conversation is over, or (hopefully remember to) come back later to flush?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously, he drops his in the toilet, thus ending the conversation and solving the problem gracefully.
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Doesn't matter, he was talking shit anyway.
Re:The Tech That Oughtta Be (Score:5, Funny)
Understandable. He was pissed off.
Re:The Tech That Oughtta Be (Score:5, Funny)
Dang, I just noticed. I wasted post number 30 million on a bad pun. Sorry about that, folks.
Re:The Tech That Oughtta Be (Score:4, Funny)
Go Analog (Score:4, Insightful)
Invest in a $5 phone book. Write once, works with everything.
The overkill solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Time for overkill solution number 1:
1) Buy a SIP to POTS adapter
2) Install asterisk on your Linux server (You do have a Linux server right?)
3) Create a web app, preferably Ruby on Rails, that connects to Asterisk over the management port and dials a phone number and rings it back to your home phone line
4) Profit until the system breaks and the wife wrings your neck because she can't call to make her beauty salon appointment!
Enjoy!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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Or just get Google Voice and make your calls using the Web interface. No need for an address book in the phone at all, and Google's done all the hard work for you.
Not as easy as a speed dial, but if you have a landline you might also be interested in saving the long distance charges...
Re: (Score:2)
Well, granted, but remember - the question was asked by someone who uses a landline.
Some landlines include long distance services, but many companies actually still differentiate between calling your neighbor and calling someone hundreds of miles away.
It's really old school, like, having, like, food you actually have to, like, cook in the microwave and stuff. :)
huh.. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm at home with an exchange server under my desk.
you can get one home for as little as 1299 right now at dell-
it comes with 5 user or device licenses- each of which includes an outlook seat
enough for my family/pcs
Re:The overkill solution (Score:4, Funny)
Time for overkill solution number 1:
1) Buy a SIP to POTS adapter 2) Install asterisk on your Linux server (You do have a Linux server right?) 3) Create a web app, preferably Ruby on Rails, that connects to Asterisk over the management port and dials a phone number and rings it back to your home phone line 4) Profit until the system breaks and the wife wrings your neck because she can't call to make her beauty salon appointment!
Enjoy!
If you don't want to kill it that much, you could switch to a VOIP service for your home number. But your solution does have that cool Dr. Seuss/Rube Goldberg vibe, so don't let me discourage you.
Re: (Score:2)
You left out a few parts of the overkill solution:
5. Excellent O'Reilly book on Asterisk ...
6. RSS feed for NerdVittles / PBX-in-a-Flash
7. Copy of VMWare Fusion because hey, why bog down the Linux server when you have a fast desktop?
8. Subscription to TWO different SIP providers because you want to compare call quality
9. iPhone to use until you get around to reading that Asterisk book
hypothetically, I mean. I'd imagine. Pure conjecture, you understand.
Regular phones are so backwards... (Score:5, Insightful)
... they work *all* the time.
Personally, I would never replace my POTS phone with anything "high tech".
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Personally, I would never replace my POTS phone with anything "high tech".
Unless you have an older model made by AT&T (bonus points if it's rotary and heavy enough to kill a horse), or use business-quality phones at home, chances are good that the quality and feature set of your home phone is "adequate" and not much more.
Re:Regular phones are so backwards... (Score:4, Funny)
More bonus points if the handset still smells like cigarettes even though no smoker has used it in 25 years.
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Hmm, you've never heard of Fairpoint, then. :)
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I haven't had a POTS phone since 2002, and never missed it. In fact, I've never seen it NOT work since then. When the tornados tore through my neighborhood in March 2006, my phone worked fine. POTS phones were out for weeks.
I really don't see much use for POTS phones, or for making them "smart" (which would only require a wifi or bluetooth connection to your PC, and a little software).
Damn, dude, I'm 57, you must REALLY be old. Are you on the right site?
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I got a chuckle, thanks.
Erm, I guess I can cook with a toastar.
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Too bad, because outside the cordless I have Cisco phones on a Asterisk box. works ALL THE TIME as well, and my VoIP service never goes down unless internet is out, and if internet is out, then POTS phone is out too. (DSL is screwy that way)
the Cisco voip phones are incredible sounding.
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Of course, this is the phone that's in the garage... the other POTS phones in the house are wireless
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Plow your *what* out? Because if it's what I'm thinking, I'm sure we could come to some kind of arrangement...
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In the case of the great NE blackout 2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003 [wikipedia.org] or if the terorists get organised and start blowing up power stations then the humble POTS phone will be the only thing left working.
Sometimes the more basic the technology the more reliable it is
If power stations get blown up, why do you think they'd ignore telephone exchanges?
It's called Asterisk (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, it's called Asterisk, but it requires more than a box you buy at a retail store. You can share a phone book and click-to-dial (Asteridex) based on entries in MySQL. It supports about every feature you can think of for the phone, from wake-up calls to auto-forwarding. Get a VOIP trunk running SIP and you'll also pay far less for phone service. You still need a tiny server running Linux, some IP phones, or an analog card, but you'll have total control and all the features you want. Personally, I like FreePBX (http://freepbx.org), and there are even easier-to-setup versions such as the distro at http://nerdvittles.com/ [nerdvittles.com].
Cost (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest reason this doesn't happen is cost. Those crappy phones you mention (I have similar setup) costs the manufacturer pennies to make. There's no fancy operating system, no connectivity with disparate systems, no pricey architecture, nothing fancy. In order to do what smart phones do, the cost would go up. Your smart phone isn't cheap, but the price is subsidized by the phone provider through deals with the manufacturer and built into the cost of the plan as a whole. Good luck, but I wouldn't expect it to happen any time soon because most people won't pay hundreds for a home phone system when they can get one that works with 4 handsets for $50.
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Then you'd remember that AT&T bought out Cingular a while ago, so they probably make more money off your cell phones anyway, and they're just try to wring as much as they still can out of their existing infr
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How much would a wifi or a bluetooth chip set them back?
Cybergenie (Score:2, Informative)
Not now, but 10 years ago (Score:2)
Microsoft Cordless Phone System [wikipedia.org]
You might be able to find one on EBay...
My phone setup (Score:5, Informative)
CLX475 (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a Uniden CLX475 ... it does pretty much everything you ask ...
http://www.uniden.com/products/productdetail.cfm?product=CLX475-3
Depends. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want power, you really want VOIP phones(even if you end up using a copper POTS line to dial out, though you can often save money by using a SIP provider). Voicemail sent to your email, speech to text, configurable menues, contacts lists that connect to LDAP/AD backends, the whole deal. Unfortunately, VOIP hardware tends to be substantially more expensive than the old POTS stuff(unless you count software VOIP clients running on hardware you already have) and need proper modern data connections(either wired or wireless ethernet, usually).
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Good old fashioned POTS stuff has its advantages(phones, even wireless ones, are incredibly cheap, you can carry the signal over cable of virtually arbitrary crappiness)..
If you define "carry the signal . . ." to mean sound quality gets worse and worse the crappier the cable gets. There's some pretty craptacular wiring out there. I have had to pull out all the POTS wiring in a house ("quad" cable spliced with anything convenient: scotch tape, bandage tape, nothing . . . all hooked together in a bizarre ring/star/daisy chain hybrid group loop disaster ) because I couldn't understand anybody and vice-versa..
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Heh. I've got a short run of CAT5 going from phone box outside to a rafter in my attic, each wire spread out, stripped, and wrapped around a nail. Then CAT3 from the nails to the phone jacks in the few rooms that have a landline phone. Voice quality is no issue.
My DSL on the other hand is CAT5 from the phone box outside up into the attic down thru a wall to a wall plate. And I get constant disconnects due to "timeout waiting for PADO" which apparently is due to too much noise on the line.
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Instead of VOIP phones dialing out of POTS, you can also get the features the OP wants by going the opposite way. For example I have simple DECT phones hooked on a Thomson VOIP DSL router, which router can have a unified address book, call logs etc. Obviously this is solution is dependent on having a DSL+VOIP provider in your area.
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A good old wired POTS phone will work even if the power is out at your house. No UPS necessary.
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Pots hardware, a generic VoIP provider, and a google voice number... Done.
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My Siemens Gigaset A580 IP phones can load and export their directory in vcard format - it should be trivial to script something to automatically sync this via their web interface.
They can handle six voip providers and have a POTS connection.
Couldn't ask for more in a set of phones.
Asterisk? (Score:2)
I have at least one friend who set up Asterisk for their home system, and got SIP phones where hardware phones are needed, and put software phones and headsets on all the computers.
http://www.asterisk.org/ [asterisk.org]
http://www.trixbox.org/ [trixbox.org]
I've not played with the free (as in beer) solutions, but the semi-free business versions (Trixbox, Digium) do support a shared speed-dial list. Plus you gain intercom, paging, music on hold, etc.
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Asterisk would definitely do it. You can get SIP instruments for under $100 each. Power over Ethernet switch with 8 powered ports isn't too expensive and eliminates the need for wall warts at all your extensions (Assuming you get PoE capable phones). Migrate or replace your home phone number with a VOIP service, they're not that expensive, might even come with an incoming fax line.
P.S. Grandstream phones relatively are cheap. You can get executivey, businessy, or homey type models. They can import your
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Looks like these would fit the bill:
http://www.voipsupply.com/ip-phones/wi-fi [voipsupply.com]
Our VTech phones have a common phonebook, etc. (Score:2)
We purchased an $80 VTech cordless phone system around three years ago (three handsets, one base station, and two other charging stations), and it seems to keep both its caller ID records and its phonebook data in a central location. If you make an entry on one unit, it shows up immediately on all three.
A similar thought... (Score:2)
Everyone's going to wireless or VoIP - there's not going to be any more innovation in the home phone arena. And in the commercial VOIP arena, this already exists in $500 desktop units.
ISDN? (Score:2)
I see many posts recommending switching to VoIP and using Astrix. I have no experience with setting up an ISDN system, however it seems like they do everything he is asking, and he would have less to rewire going that route. Are there any simple, reasonably priced ISDN PBX boxes that would work well for this?
It's called Android.Put #s into gmail contacts FTW (Score:2)
Works with Siemens dect (Score:3, Interesting)
I remedied some of this with VoIP .... (Score:2)
I got rid of my regular land line, and went with "Phone Power", a cheap VoIP provider out of Calfornia. (Only $14.95 per month if you're willing to sign a 2 year contract with them, and you get unlimited calls to anywhere in the USA for that price.) I'm sure there are many other inexpensive choices as well. (I was previously using "AT&T Callvantage", but that one is going away so I had to switch services. It cost more like $25 a month anyway.)
A nice side-effect of switching my service to VoIP is, I
partial solution (Score:2)
Doesn't do anything about synching the phone books, but logging caller id, forwarding voice mail to email, remote access to voice mail: PhoneValet [parliant.com].
Contemporize, man. (Score:2)
My phone does all the stuff you want. And it has no wires. And nobody asks, "Is Bobby home?" when I answer it. It keeps an extensive callerID history on board and a full accounting of all incoming and outgoing calls is available online. I can synchronize my contacts and calendar with the computer. Got voicemail notification and everything.
Land lines are dying. The chances of seeing major integration improvements are slim to none so, if you're stuck on the idea of keeping a land line, just start lookin
30 seconds of Google (Score:2, Informative)
Google much?
http://www.voicecallcentral.com/ [voicecallcentral.com]
My smartphone is my home phone (Score:2)
I finally realized that we did not need a home phone since everyone in my house had their own cell phone. My Blackberry uses my wifi network when I am at home and for $15/month I have have unlimited local and long distance through the Rogers talkspot plan. Now I don't miss any calls since there is only one number to reach me no matter where I am. I even have a bluetooth handset phone that automatically connects when I am in the house. Its great not having to answer the phone and find out the call was fo
Microsoft Cordless Phone (Score:2)
Landline abandonment (Score:5, Insightful)
I see lots of people deciding they don't need a landline any more. Well, for a single person or in the case where everyone in the house has a cell phone, that can work. It works better when your wireless carrier has a WiFi component to their plan - although since they lose money by the fistful on these I would expect either the carrier or the plan to disappear.
But what happens when you have a three-year-old child? Going to get them a cell phone? I don't think so. And while you can teach a three year old to dial 911 calling from a cell phone may not be anywhere near as easy or helpful. In a house the GPS chip isn't going to work so well, so your phone isn't going to know where it is. Meaning that the fire department doesn't know where to go.
Landline phone service is also just plain more reliable. If you live in an area where there are weather-related power outages, which is just about anywhere, you can't assume that the cell tower infrastructure has much battery backup - some have none at all. Contrast this with the landline Central Office which when the batteries start getting low fires up the generator to keep dial tone available. I have had no electricity from the power company for more than 24 hours after an ice storm, before there were cell phones. After a few hours a cell phone would be a paperweight under these circumstances.
Why do you need a land line? Children. Emergencies. Power outages. Maybe you don't care now, but you very well might in the future.
And one thing to consider. If enough people drop land lines, they will disappear entirely. Try, just try to find a pay phone outside of an airport or train station today. Nobody needs them, unless your cell phone dies and you need to call someone like maybe a tow truck. Good luck, because pay phones have been declared obsolete. So now there is no alternative. Land lines might be declared obsolete as well - in which case good luck teaching your young children how to dial out on your Blackberry.
Re:Landline abandonment (Score:4, Informative)
Unless the responsible adult is having a heart attack/stroke/seizure and the tyke has to call 911 for them.
A Chain of Problems, Asterisk is not the Answer (Score:5, Interesting)
Having set up Asterisk a couple of different places AND attempting to integrate most of the things discussed, I can tell you there are a whole chain of problems.
a phone system that I could sync to my computer so I could update the phone book over all the units
Meaning a single address book shared/synced at all phones? You would need phones with *some* kind of open client interface. Of which, there are exactly zero.
(if not sync with Address Book or Outlook),
Please, dear Lord. No. This is another binary jail. But it looks like you want your home computer's Outlook client to be somehow involved. Which, is another programming mountain to climb separate from the first feature.
keep a log of caller IDs
This, Asterisk can do. A more flexible solution requiring some coding is Freeswitch. As others have mentioned, you have to plug the POTS line into your PC. Is there a GUI that can render the results to meet your satisfaction? Maybe.
or even forward me new voicemail notifications.
Asterisk and Freeswitch can do this too. But, there are numerous details that drive people away. Do the hard/soft phones you end up using have ways to implement call forwarding? How about controlling call forwarding at the server only? Is there a GUI available to meet your standards of usable? I haven't worked with Asterisk in a long time though maybe there are prettier ways of doing things now.
Dog forbid you want to integrate your mobile phone into the fray.
BTW, there's a whole forest of patents on voicemail notification alone. Even *if* something was made, it probably violates patents. http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=98808 [lightreading.com]
my base phones do this (Score:2)
For the life of me I can't remember the brand, but I got it at Sam's club. I'll see if I can note it later tonight and enter it here as a reply to this comment (if i remember) Its 4 phones (supprots up to 6), 1 base station, 3 chargers, 8.1GHz. Phone calls can be transfered between handsets easy, room to room pager functions, 2 phones can conference even miles from the base station (handy on long car trips with multiple cars trying to stay in touch).
most importantly, it has 2 nice features i think you're
The Siemens SL785 does (some) of what you want (Score:2)
See:
SL785 on Amazon [amazon.com]. It is the only cordless phone on the market that has some semi-smartphone features.
You can push .vcf cards to the phone via Bluetooth (I exported from Google, and pushed my entire contact list in one go). Alternately, you can use the optional software to sync a handset with Outlook via USB or Bluetooth.
Once one handset is updated, you can push the entire phonebook to any other handset.
The phones themselves are very pretty and well made, and work great as phones. They can also display ph
Try OpenPeak (Score:4, Informative)
It is as though they took an iPhone and applied it to a workplace telephone system.
Vonage (Score:3, Interesting)
Vonage keeps track of all numbers you dialed or called you, along with voicemail you can dial into, access via email, or access via their web interface.
I don't know about updating phone books for cordless phones, but since I switched to Vonage I have better control over my voicemail and list of phone numbers via the web interface and it emails every voice mail entry to my address along with a speech to text of the message.
Vonage uses a CAT5 Ethernet connector and then any POTS phone. As long as you have the Internet with an Ethernet port (Like a Wireless hub with Ethernet ports in it) you can use the Vonage box. Plus it has free Long Distance to the USA and 60+ foreign nations. My wife and brother-in-law use it to call family in Thailand for free. About $33 a month after taxes.
The other thing is Google Voice but that is still in beta testing.
The thing is cordless POTS phones never caught up with cell phones yet, but that is a good business to get into and develop smart POTS phones that sync up phone lists, etc.
Siemens Gigaset (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
> next question.
Ok, I'll bite. Does this seem like a business opportunity to anyone?
Re:no. it does not. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really for personal use, unless you live in an area where owning a cellphone is prohibitively expensive and a landline isn't. I think the number of geeks that would fit this niche would be very small. Other than this case, I really think the landline is slowly going the way of the dodo as far as home users are concerned.
However, being able to push something like this out to business and corporate clients may well be a viable opportunity.
Re:no. it does not. (Score:5, Insightful)
I really think the landline is slowly going the way of the dodo as far as home users are concerned.
My landline phone, never needs external power or batteries. It never has problems when the "tower" is overloaded with people trying to make calls. By LAW, it can always call 911 from any phone jack in any house. I never have to deal with "are you there? you're breaking up" nor deal with "ATT|Verizon|Sprint|T-Mobile has crappy coverage at my house..." related issues. I have a $5 corded phone from Walmart for emergency use and a cordless phone (requires external power) for normal use. Maybe as a society we're becoming too dependent on continuous sources of electricity.
And yes I've been without power to my house for days on end (ice storms in the Northeast). Light's didn't work but my home phone worked fine.
Re:no. it does not. (Score:5, Insightful)
My horse, never needs gasoline or battery power. It never has problems when the "highway" is overloaded with people trying to go to work. By NATURE, it can always get me home from any bar in any area. I never have to deal with "you need an alignment" nor deal with "FORD|CHEVY|DODGE has crappy dealerships near my house..." related issues. I have a $5 leather whip from Walmart for emergency use and leather saddle from Walmart (requires external buckle) for normal use. Maybe as a society we're becoming too dependent on continuous sources of transportation.
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Must really chafe you to no end to see all those "Pedestrians, Equestrians and Bicycles prohibited" signs on the highways.
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But your horse needs food, shoes, shots and exercise. Not to mention a stable to sleep in and a field to run around in. I'll bet once the gp paid his five bucks at Walmart and plugged the phone in to its jack, he never had to do another thing to maintain it.
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He has no horse sense.
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it can always get me home from any bar in any area.
Yeah, but if you get cited for too many RUI/RWI's they can impound your horse or at least issue you a pink saddle to publicly shame you.
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I really think the landline is slowly going the way of the dodo as far as home users are concerned.
And yes I've been without power to my house for days on end (ice storms in the Northeast). Light's didn't work but my home phone worked fine.
My phone lines would always get pulled down by the same tree branch that killed my power, you insensitive clod! But other that that, POTS is still very reliable. However, since I don't have POTS anymore, I guess that extra reliability wasn't that valuable to me, at least compared to the cost of a cell plus a landline.
Re:no. it does not. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why on earth would I want to pay $30/month for a basic phone line, with no Caller ID, Call Waiting, or Voicemail, and I have to pay for long distance on top of it?! For that same money- I can get a nice Cellular or VoIP plan with, at a minimum, Caller ID, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, 3-Way Calling, AND Voicemail, plus unlimited or dirt-cheap long distance.
Based on the stability of my DSL connection, I really doubt a land line would be much more reliable in adverse weather or other conditions either, at least for where I live. I have a friend who lives down the street who's land line goes dead several times a year, and it takes an average of 18 hours to get it fixed each time. For power failures- my phones, network, and VoIP equipment are on a nice big UPS that will keep them running for close to two hours- plenty of time to deal with an emergency, or at the very least- call the power company.
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Tit is because of the phone company monopolies on wired service and their ridiculous pricing and rules structures that don't seem to have changed much since the 50s
This shows that capitalism works when not tampered by a monopoly.
The same companies that we buy the land line service from are also doing the cell phones service. The difference is the amount of competition.
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While all of the points made therein are true, the inference, that one can always depend on a corded phone and a pots line, is false. Last fall, here in Houston in the days (weeks, in some cases) following Hurricane Ike, man POTS customers learned this first-hand. The reasons for the failure of POTS lines were several:
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I have a land line and, aside from a major installation problem initially, have never had an outage in 2 years. I can't say the same for my cellular.
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I've had 2 outages on my land line in the last 10 years, but I have never had an outage on my cellphone.
Never had a dropped call? Never got the "redial, network busy" tone? Never got a "Call failed" displayed on the face of the phone? Those are outages.
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I only get dropped calls when I'm on a train and it goes out of coverage area. A landline wouldn't be an option there anyway. I've never had a network busy tone or call failed display ever.
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I've since settled, and I've never really seen the need to get a landline again. I just keep my cell as my main phone. I have considered though...since I live in a multi-story house, to getting one of those phone systems that will connect via bluetooth to your cell phone, and all the other handsets throughout the house, will go through your cell phone. That would make it more convenient so
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone who is worried about this kind of thing should already have an asterisk server which could do this for all phones, not just the cordless ones. And yes, its a huge business opportunity [voip-info.org].
For home phones there is OOMA (Score:2)
look into ooma.com. besides their zany bussiness model (buy the voip console, get free basic phone service) they seem to be offering a lot of what you are asking for as add-on services( $110 per year). I own one and can say they do work as well as any other voip.
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My Logitech remote can do it, and has cool features, why couldn't the cordless phone.
it wouldn't even have to be all that complicated (I've seen some people mentioning asterisk).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people dont want to pay hundreds for a cordless phone. THAT is why.
My Engenius cordless has a 2 mile range (real 2 mile range not fake marketing crap) and it cost me $325.00 for a single handset+basestation and antenna. I have never met another person that owned an engenius phone because of the cost.
Re:no. it does not. (Score:4, Informative)
You've met one now - I've got the antenna on a small pole on the back of my house extending it about 10 feet above the roof line. I have a spare battery I charge with it in the base as well and always carry the phone and spare battery with me -- it works from my house all the way to my office - as well as all over my neighbourhood. I have it connected to an analog digium card in my asterisk pbx. It's nice having access to my home phone and free voice over IP calls from anywhere within 3-4 km of home, and the phone isn't much bigger than the old "candybar" style cell phones of the late 90s/early 2000 vintage.
Re: (Score:2)
no.
DECT phones already auto copy their phonebook to each other. At least quality ones do.
I have 6 cordless phillips DECT phones and when you add a number to one, they all have it.
Now create a PC to DECT gateway, they has a very light saleability at around $19.95
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Does anyone use landlines at home any more? I know two people who do. They are both very old, and are struggling with the move from rotary dialing to tone dialing. I don't think they would be the least bit interested in this.
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What if I don't want to have to take my phone with me everywhere around the house? It's bad enough having to remember to take it whenever I head out...
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Because my cell phone doesn't work when:
1) I'm in my house. (AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint... I haven't tested anyone else.)
2) The battery runs out.
Also, my land-line is cheaper than most cell-phone plans, and the phone is more comfortable to use.
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My landline kept working during a 5 day blackout. My cellphone barely lasts a day without recharging.
My landline has great sound. My cellphone is mediocre.
My landline rings loudly enough to hear anywhere in the house. I can usually hear my cellphone when it's in my damn pocket, barely.
My landline might be "primitive", but it works.
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When you use a landline phone, you don't need to limit the length of your calls, you don't need to check the time of day nor the day of the week, and you don't have to be afraid that your battery will stop working while you're talking to someone.
And don't assume that a cellphone is less expensive. Have you seen cellphone contracts in Canada? It's crazy.
Re:Why are you so backwards? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why on earth are you still using a landline? A mobile phone will probably be cheaper
Mobile phones are a lot of things, but being cheaper isn't one of them. We talk to Canada for over 1000 minutes per month. I can easily afford to pay for my Qwest landline with unlimited calling to Canada for just those long-distance charges. Any time you get into many minutes for multiple people, cell phone plans start to suck.