O Landline, Where Art Thou?
If you're one of my fellow atavistic telephobes who's unwilling or unable to toss your land line in favor of a single cellular line, this topic may strike close to home. With all the meticulous attention paid to technology on the internet, there's a surprising lack of good old-fashioned telephone hardware discussion. Even CNet, whose hardware review coverage is nothing short of overwhelming, stopped categorizing and reviewing traditional landline telephones ages ago.
Like a postapocalyptic society, the world of corded and cordless home phones has been left to moulder and rust while the rest of us get on with the business of cellphones and DVRs and PMPs and PDAs. Most of my landline-owning friends (and, even more likely, our elders) have archaic technology that they/we are always bemoaning.
I recently gave up the ghost on my old Uniden answering machine/2-handset combo, since its phone batteries held about a 3 minute charge and my WiFi connection wreaked havoc with the phones' 5.8GHz connection.
After giving up rather quickly on my internet searches, I took the proactive route and walked down to my local Circuit City and Best Buy. The landline sections were borderline traumatizing - clunky, ugly handsets by companies like Uniden and VTech and GE, all of which have disappointed me before. There was one nice-looking handset at Circuit City, but not only had it been out of stock for weeks, but my sales associate looked surprised to even see it there amongst the ruins.
A return to the trusty internet proved helpful, and I soon found at least a temporary solution to my telephonic woes: turning myself into a guinea pig for your benefit. Make the jump to find out if, why and how companies like Netgear and Linksys are reviving the non-cellular phone world.
Many landline phones these days come with DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications), a 3G protocol designed to improve call clarity and signal strength in wireless home phones and operating on an 1.8-1.9 GHz range so as not to interfere with WiFi and other wireless technology.
Unfortunately, most designs I checked out still look like they belong in your grandmother's basement, and have proprietary menu and UI designs that feel positively archaic compared to the carefully designed front deck of your mobile phone.
My initial choice of the Netgear Dual Mode Cordless Telephone with Skype was almost arbitrary - I also looked at the virtually identical offering from Linksys and the gorgeous-looking Philips phone with the same general concept. What is that concept? Simple (sorta):
These phones connect to your broadband router and your landline, and offer general landline functionality (lacking a physical answering machine and spotty caller ID outside the US), and they also link up to your Skype account. So not only do I have a new, functional, pretty land phone beside my bed, but my friends with Skype accounts can call my houseline directly - since the phone is logged in to my Skype account. It even retrieves my contact information from the Skype servers!
I'm only on Day 2. Far too early for a review or even a reliable comparison; who knows what snags and drawbacks and bugs could show up as the days roll on? I'll be sure to come back with my final opinion in a few weeks - in the meantime I'm both confused at the general lack of sophistication in the traditional landline hardware market and pleasantly surprised to see these networking hardware companies picking up the slack.
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, In Your House on 11 January 2008
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: cell phones, landline, netgear, telephones
One way or another, Microsoft will try to sell you a phone.
Oh Tiny, do let us know how it goes. I've been looking to give up my cable phone to get just internet, but can't thanks to my DVR needing a phone connection. If this does VOIP and can hook into the existing home wide connection I have I'd be pleased to drop my cable/voip phone and save a nice chunk of cash in the bargain.