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Home Phone System That Syncs To Computer?
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?'
next question.
> next question.
Ok, I'll bite. Does this seem like a business opportunity to anyone?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
What's a "landline"? :-)
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.
That's a great question, and an even better request to broadcast to manufacturers. I have a 4 unit/1 base V-Tech cordless system at home that I love (rugged [survived a drop in a toilet and kept on working], battery life, etc), except for wishing that it did stuff that it doesn't. The feature tech isn't the difficult part, it's getting the manufacturer's attention so they know it's wanted.
My Human Gets Me Blues.
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!
... they work *all* the time.
Personally, I would never replace my POTS phone with anything "high tech".
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/.
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.
http://www.cygnion.net/ It did exist, and there are still some available out there if you look hard enough. It had some issues, the main one being lack of sales hampering the development of the technology any further, but it worked pretty well all being said.
Microsoft Cordless Phone System
You might be able to find one on EBay...
I have a Panasonic phone system with 3 cordless handsets and one base station. It keeps all of the phone book entries centrally, so if you change it from one handset all get the change. Same with the caller ID log. No connection to my computer, but this sounds like most of what you're asking for. Maybe you just need a newer phone?
I might be indecisive, but I'm not really sure. What do you think?
I have a Uniden CLX475 ... it does pretty much everything you ask ...
http://www.uniden.com/products/productdetail.cfm?product=CLX475-3
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); but sophistication isn't really one of them. Even DECT gear, while ostensibly some kind of standard, is little more powerful or interoperable than the old-school proprietary RF linked wireless phones.
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).
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.
Why on earth are you still using a landline? A mobile phone will probably be cheaper, you can take it with you anywhere (even in your home), and most of them can sync with your computer contacts (or even your contacts in the cloud).
Unfortunately, no such beast exists in the consumer market. For businesses, definitely.
The problem is, home phone systems are quickly becoming extinct. The market for an advanced home phone system may have been there 5-10 years ago, but not today. Cell phones have become so prevalent that most people under the age of 30 don't even get home phone service anymore. Landline subscribers for all major phone companies keeps going down year after year.
Investing R&D into an advanced home phone system would be equivalent to investing in a sharper color VHS technology. There's no point. This problem isn't the answer you wanted to hear, but it's the truth.
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/
http://www.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.
-Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
Generally, that type of functionality is provided with an actual PBX (either analog line, digital line, or VoIP service).
Of course, the core system can be pricey (the analog or digital cards... VoIP service isnt), and the phones generally range from $99 to over $500.
You would use Asterisk (or one of it's various incarnations), and any compatible SIP phone (Aastra, Cisco, Snom, etc). Some are 100% wireless (using wifi), some are wired, but come with an optional wireless phone.
So, yes, it can be done, but all depends on how much money or effort you want to put into it.
OMG... I have a sig?
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.
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.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
It has bluetooth that you can used with a standard headset AND copy your contacts from your mobile. Pretty slick. Panasonic 2-Line DECT 6.0 Expandable Digital Cordless Answering System (KX-TG9381T) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002KF21FK/ref=oss_T15_product
I've been looking at Skype headsets for a while, but I wanted something that would work without being connected to a computer, and would work with my existing panasonic 4 station system. Verizon had some great ideas in their Audrey-like home phone station, but cost-wise and lockin sort of kept me away.
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.
you never know... here,
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?
My dad has a hand-crank phone.
It's not live but it has instructions to rewire it to bypass the crank and hook it to an American phone line.
I'd love to see this hanging off my VoIP router!
One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingy
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 that I don't either have to carry my phone up/down stairs with me....or just leave it on the other floor and miss calls.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actually it does seem silly that cordless phones couldn't be 'synced' with a local computer.
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).
Many mobile handsets on the market have wifi abilities. This means - when you are at home - they can talk with your home wifi router to do home-based calling rather than using the cell network.
Quite separately, many of these mobiles also have the ability for software installations that will sync your mobile phone with your contacts, calendar and email. I use an app called "RoadSync" - they have a website, google them. It works pretty well for me.
The combination of these two separate abilities means:
- You can use mobile sets also as your home phone without paying cellular prices.
- When they are on your home wifi net, you are also using less intense radiation
- You are fully sync-ed with your email contacts and calendar
The drawback is that mobile sets can be a bit more expensive then home cordless phones. You need to research the features and prices.
When my wife got an Android phone, do you know how she put people's phone numbers into it? By editing their phone number in her gmail contacts. I'd say that's pretty damn synced. She never entered a single number into her phone, and me, never having used it, and not having a cell phone myself [and thus not savvy with them], could still figure out how to call someone in about 3 seconds.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
SIEMENS GIGASET S680 BLUETOOTH DECT PHONE http://www.cordless-phones.uk.com/cordless-phones/digital-cordless-phones/siemens-gigaset-s680-phone easy to program, easy to use. I have worked with Siemens dect systems when I worked with Siemens HiPath 4000. Most new dect phones got sync to PC that I have used.
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 can centrally create a list of "speed dial" numbers on their web site, and all phones in my house use them. (They're all dialed with the * and then a 2 digit number.) Additionally, Phone Power does a "virtual 2nd. line" feature that could come in handy. Basically, a second phone jack on the terminal adapter they ship you can be configured as the "virtual" number. So when you're on a phone in the house that's running off the primary jack of the adapter, and a second call comes in, it will ring the phone(s) on the second jack and allow someone to answer it without interrupting your original conversation. Alternately, you can take the call yourself on the primary line by clicking over, in the typical "call waiting" manner. By the same token, even though phones on both jacks will present themselves as being the same phone number, you can make 2 simultaneous outgoing calls with both of them.
A caller ID log is also maintained on their web site for you, and you can even click on a call in the log to add it to a "block" list. (Once blocked, future incoming calls from that number either get immediately routed to your voice mailbox, or they get an immediate busy signal ... your choice.)
The voice mailbox feature can essentially be "disabled" if you still prefer using a traditional answering machine, by telling it to wait an "unlimited" amount of time before calls are transferred to it once your number starts ringing. But if you do opt to use it, it's pretty powerful too. You can have copies of your messages emailed to you as .WAV sound file attachments, for example. And by setting up "advanced call routing", you can create a whole sequence of phone numbers that a call will ring before going to voicemail. (This might prevent someone NEEDING to leave you voicemail in the first place, if you have, say, a cellphone ring simultaneously with your home number.)
I used to care if my land line phones had certain features, but now, I've realized VoIP renders most of it pointless duplication.
You can run the server software ( Free ) on any older machine and the phones are nearly open source with the options they have.
The Phone can be expensive but any unit ( phone, cell, PC etc) that can run SIP based telephone calls will interface fine.
For example I have a HTC Dream with android and the SIPDroid app works very well.
Links:
http://www.trixbox.org/
http://www.polycom.com/
http://www.sipdroid.com/
They kinda taste like tasty wheat . . . . kinda . . .
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Microsoft had a 900 MHz phone a little over 10 years ago that did this and it worked really well for me until it was no longer supported when Windows 2000 came out. You can read about it here here.
Doesn't do anything about synching the phone books, but logging caller id, forwarding voice mail to email, remote access to voice mail: PhoneValet.
Did you even RTFS?
The OP clearly mentions that he wants this kind of functionality in POTS, knowing that it already exists in most smartphones.
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 looking at what's out there right now and buy the best you can afford. There's no point in waiting because it's not going to get any better.
Google much?
http://www.voicecallcentral.com/
"Keep at least 3-6 full bottles of hard alcohol on hand, a 2 week resignation notice,..." - Poetmatt
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
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
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 for my kids.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yes it does. Here's my business plan:
1. Invent smart land line system.
2. ???
3. Profit!
I have a panasonic cordless 4 handset model that will copy phonebook entries from one handset to another - it's a function that is buried in the "Phonebook" options menu on the handset.
I own a set of Uniden CLX485s. Basic base station with expandable handsets. I have the 485 which includes color screens. They come with a USB cable and a program that will pull contacts from Outlook with a little configuration (contacts with many numbers require mapping to home/office/mobile). Once imported you can set personal ringers and pictures for each one up to the storage limits. My only issue was the battery died and I never got around to ordering new batteries, then a woot deal came along and I got newer Uniden phones (that lack Outlook sync) So they are out there, but I don't know how much support they still get:
http://www.uniden.com/products/productdetail.cfm?product=CLX485
http://www.uniden.com/products/productdetail.cfm?product=CLX475-3
Just keep your contacts in your Google account and use Google Voice. Works with SIP (Gizmo5), POTS, and cell phones. Additionally it delivers SMS and voice mail messages (transcribed) into your email so you no longer have to deal with additional places to check messages.
It may not have problems when the tower is overloaded, but it will when the circuits from the CO are. Can call 911 or use the phone during a storm should something actually break the line going to your house. You still will have to deal with crappy coverage because people that call you will be using their cell phone. Thanks for playing.
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.
I am not a crackpot.
Verizon has a phone service called IOBI ... it does all you ask plus it takes your voice mail and changes it to text ... you link with another service from Verizon (Wireless) called the Hub and it will do everything but brush your teeth and comb your hair
It was a product that was just a little ahead of its time for the home market, but it never really took off. Cool in concept, being able to listen to voicemail on pc or the phone. If I remember correctly though, the downside for why I didn't buy one was that I wasn't leaving the computer on all day back then. Microsoft Cordless Phone
Asterisk would be your best bet - especially now with the GUI that can be used to set this up. One would also need some sort of SIP trunk - unless you buy a nice expensive PCI card for your asterisk box.
You might be able to find one of these on ebay...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyevPhRoboE
Wow! Don't buy from Microsoft?
Someone please mod this up. I couldn't agree more.
Must really chafe you to no end to see all those "Pedestrians, Equestrians and Bicycles prohibited" signs on the highways.
If you got rid of your POTS how do cook?
Certainly this would be a great opportunity for VOIP phones, which is a market waiting to either grow: where we'll see everyone back to Land-line style phones in their homes (not likely to happen) or bite the dust: the mobile phone world has taken over as the preferred method of consumer communication, leaving the 20-somethings saying stuff like "what's a land-line?".
What's an E.T?
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.
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
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
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.
I don't care why you're posting AC
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 in the market for:
1) entering a new contact on any phone is automatically replicated to others, as well as management of caller-ID history too (clearing history on 1 phone clears it on all, including numebr by number or clear all).
2) items in caller-ID can be added to one of 2 calling lists: phone book, or "blocked calls" The blocked call feature is what I really bought it for. Up to 40-50 numbers can be added to the list. (including by name or number). Calls from that number ring once, then the phone sends a busy signal back down the line and the phone stops ringing. This is great for keeping collection scams at bay; those guys who call asking to sell you warrantys for your car, and Portfolio Recovery Associates (scammers trying to collect debts that are no longer on record).
Granted, if you have a google voice number, all this is irrelevent, since you can call google and remote dial any favorite from there, and it;s blocked call featre is far superior as is their call screening option, but this base station is awesome if you still have a landline or VoIP line at home...
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
I don't trust a phone that I don't have to manually crank.
The phone worked really well which isn't really a suprise when you consider their reputation for well made hardware (mice, keyboard, etc) until the Xbox 360 came out years later. The voice recognition was amazing and it used the addressbook on my computer, supported multiple mailboxes, synced with the computer clock, etc. How was I to know that they would kill it by not supporting it with Windows 2k?
Get a Cybergenie.
See:
SL785 on Amazon. 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 photos, and you can use your own custom ringtones. The handsets can (or claim to) use Bluetooth headsets, too, but I've yet to have one work well (something off with the bluetooth radio in the handsets).
Very, very pricey compared to other phones, however.
I think you missed the point there...
How about http://www.comcast.com/homepoint/
What you want is a small system that comes with a KSU- key switching unit and has PBX like functionaltiy as well. You may find today they come with integrated voice mail or a out of the box solution. You may find them used and of course more pricey especially anything wireless but they do the job.
One of my faves, the Norstar system by Nortel, which I believe now integrates VoIP with Fiber trunking if needed.
Open Peak
It is as though they took an iPhone and applied it to a workplace telephone system.
Invest in a $5 phone book. Write once, works with everything.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
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.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
After posting i went window shopping (with firefox/ubuntu) for voip/skype type phones. Seems there are many phones out there that would have features similar to what you are looking for, with the exception being it isn't a land-line phone, it's a VOIP phone.
But they do:
Sync to your pc for VM, Contacts, logs, etc.
many are expadable to 4-8 handsets
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&safe=off&q=skype+handset&cid=6368542560501381677&sa=title#p
if you're worried about power, get a UPS. if you're worried about 911, it's no different than mobile 911 really.
If you're worried about living in your moms basement, well...
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.
One of the true ironies of the tech world: Microsoft, by definition a software company, usually sells pretty good hardware; it is their software that leaves much to be desired. I really like their keyboards and mice, people say this phone was good, and even the Timex/Microsoft watch worked.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Cordless phones don't have robust computers; cell phones do. Adding features, such as address list synchronization, is a thousand times easier to do using Java (on a smartphone) than it is to do using PIC microcontroller assembly (on a cordless phone).
You want cordless phones with cell phone features? Expect to pay $400 for your set of four, rather than paying $60 for the set you currently have.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Maybe you've always been lawful good, so you've never had any alignment problems with your special horse...
He has no horse sense.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
There is not a cordless variant AFAIK but check out www.aksysnetworks.com for a unique PSTN/P2P VoIP hybrid that does all of the synchronizing, auto attendant, voicemail to email etc features without a centralized server.
Too dependent on continuous sources of electricity? The corded phone you use requires electrical power; it just gets it over the phone line instead of the power line. The phone company still needs to work to supply that power with batteries, generators, etc, and it is still subject to failure. You are still depending on a continuous source of electricity; it's just a different source.
Yeah, it's called "Google Voice"
But its a little outdated. I ran my home and small biz office on it for years
http://www.cygnion.net/
My workplace used to have an Engenius cordless.. it was awesome. It worked all around our campus (three different warehouse-sized buildings) without a hiccup for years. Finally died after being dropped too many times.
I have a Phillips DECT system with four cordless phones and one base. Almost all setup options are replicated between the phones almost instantly, including the phone book, which allows for custom ring tones for individuals (similar to a cell phone). The only option that isn't duplicated, which I like, is the default ringer and ring volume- which can be set by phone. So- the phone in the bedroom doesn't have to have the same loud ring as the one in the Kitchen or Den. I don't see any reason to get more sophisticated than that, unless you want one of those new carrier-linked Internet connected phones (from Comcast and Verizon, for example), which basically give you standard "smart phone" capabilities in an inconveniently wired package.
If you want to go for overkill- do what I did once and I know others have suggested: Set up an Asterisk-based PBX server and buy display phones for it. You can also use SIP adapters with regular or cordless phones, but you will have to compromise on some of the functionality. For example- you can get Caller ID and basic voicemail notifications on a standard phone/cordless display, but that's about it. You can pick up new office-style display phones pretty cheap (around $100) on eBay.
I had an Asterisk setup like I described for awhile, but eventually got tired of it. Having a computer running 24x7 for the server (even if it is just a laptop) is wasteful, as is running network cables everywhere I wanted a phone. It also seemed like I was constantly troubleshooting problems with it- one phone liked dropping offline for no apparent reason no matter what I did, and one of the SIP adapters I used was flaky. You don't want an unreliable phone system.
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.
I've had 2 outages on my land line in the last 10 years, but I have never had an outage on my cellphone.
You just listed a lot of advantages that are irrelevant to most people. You're covering situations that are so rare (overloaded tower, 911) that almost never come up, and even when they do come up, they end up not mattering anyway. The battery thing is the only one that matters, and most people manage to come up with countermeasures. I can stock extra batteries for a year, more cheaply than the cost of a single month of the cheapest landline service.
When my power's out, I have so many problems that I don't care whether my phone works or not. That's like saying "if an asteroid hits my house, my tractor is safe because I park it at my brother's house." Sure, your tractor is safe, but you're dead. Sure, you can make phone calls, but there's nothing to say but "yep, it still sucks over here. no power."
My western electric model 500 supports a phonebook push just fine... it comes in the mail once a year.
I don't understand how you'd use the phone with the phonebook *on* it though? How would you pick up the handset?
now get off my lawn.
Sent from my PDP-11
If you could find some of the "Nortel Meridian 9617 USB 2-Line Telephone" phones you could do some of what you want... just not cordless-ly... Unfortunately it was too ahead of its time and Aastra killed it after buying the technology from Nortel.
A phone is a phone. Well I can agree with it being wireless I don't see the need for much else. An answering machine is useful also, so all we really need in a home phone is a answering machine and wireless capability, that's it. Anything else would be useless or pointless in a home phone system.
The reason people have moved away from land line phones isn't necessarily because they feel cellular or VoIP technology is that much better- it 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 (other than the price going up every year while their level of customer service drops).
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.
I don't know how it works in the US, but here in France my home ADSL box, which I sue for internet acces + phone + TV, supports SIPS over ethernet or wifi: I can automatically redirect all my phone calls to a PC of my choice (including, firewall permitting, my work PC when I'm at work), or to a SIPS wifi mobile phone.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
use Astrix. all those capabilities already exist.
My landline isn't powered any more, DSL signal only.
It would cost 10 euros a month to have it connected to the phone network/power grid.
stupid trusting of spell check.. It's Asterisk.
http://www.asterisk.org/
for even better computer integration there is HUD as well.
http://www.hudlite.org/downloads.htm
By LAW, it can always call 911 from any phone jack in any house.
That's assuming your line hasn't been disconnected physically (either through a line cut or the telco cutting your pair due to non-payment/disconnect request). I can take the cell phone I had "disconnected" because I no longer needed it and still dial 911 on it, even though it is currently roaming onto Verizon (it is a Sprint-native phone).
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.
If you just want to track that stuff, get a magic jack. It does keep track of those things. Rather nicely too. Of course you have to leave a computer on all the time but you expected that.
Why bother
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.
So I have what I call a landline phone in the house. But the telco has fiber to the house. The telco no longer much likes copper. So the install requires power to run the fiber interconnect. I guess not very much. I talked to guy and I guess it was maybe 2.5 milliamp.
Here is something sort of interesting. To deal with legal requirements they need enough battery backup to run 4 hours. This telco puts in power backup for maybe a week. They put in two power units. Rual area, lot of elderly. But I once had it actually exceed that time and go out because of power issues in the house.
Anyway, look at a traditional copper wire based phone. The CO has big batteries! That is why your phone does not seem to require batteries.
Siemens Gigaset.....will allow you to copy phone book from handset to handset....supports bluetooth for headphones and syncing address book with PC
I am using a Siemens Gigaset system along with a Siemens M34 USB dongle, which allows you to manage directory form your PC and Skype etc, but you have to do it via outlook, which is painful as well. Personally, I found google contacts to be the most useful across platforms that can be a feature for home telephone that can be further explored. There are later Gigaset phones that allow you to simply copy your sim contacts from your mobile phone to your home phone or batch send it via bluetooth, but I found Siemens phones are not very popular in the US, which it strange because I found Gigaset phones are far more superior in call clarity, os friendliness and have better industrial design and build quality, and runs on standard AAA batteries instead of those battery packs.
Aside from being tremendously hilarious, this makes me wonder if it's possible to get a DUI on a horse.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Same here. Panasonic 5.8 ghz with 1 base and 1+4 cordless handsets. I use http://home.comcast.net/~rickrich1/sw/tkcid.tar.gz (Linux) plus a Zoom modem for my Caller ID. Also has "Blow Them Off" or "Play SIT tones". Uses gnome for a GUI.
btw, yeah, if you are looking for something that does EXACTLY everything you need is a google voice number and port your home phone number when you sign up...
Vonage subscibers have access to something called "Contact Center".
This allows you to dial into a web-based contact book. Update your contacts and they're available for all phones in the house, regardless of what kind of phone you have.
For voice-activated dialing, all you have to do is dial *44 from your Vonage phone, say the name of the person you want to call, and Vonage Voice Activated dialing will make the call for you.
I've been using this for a few years now and love it.
"My landline phone, never needs external power"
What is this amazing source of limitless power you speak of? Yes, your phone draws power. It draws it from the phone line. By LAW, all cell phones must always be able to call 911 with or without a sim card, with or without service. Go take any cell phone whether you've paid for it or not, it will call 911.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I don't own a cell phone, so my only line is a land line. AT&T here likes to play games with the DSL, even though you can get 'dry' lines with no other service, they charge as much as with, so I go for it.
On the other hand, the last time I had a conversation lasting longer than 3 minutes outside of work and on a phone was long enough ago I can't even remember it. If someone wants to talk to me (and I want to talk to them) it's electronicly via IM or email or other such methods.
Tack up a sheet of phone numbers on the fridge
You have either headsets, or speakers/mikes at every computer in your house? Even laptops?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Install google voice application on a wifi pda, it will give you chat+voip+robust phone number list that follows to cell phones, work, etc. Thus no longdistance (nationwide) and cheapeast international rates.
I don't know that asterisk is that hard. I downloaded trixbox.org CD, and stuck it in a old PC with a digium adapter, it rebooted and I had a phone system. The sweet thing is it does the land line, also with google voice, and my old school dell axim, the google voice application with bluetooth headset, and a voip application. You then got everything on one device.
I used this at a small office, added some dialing rules and a UPS. It was almost too reliable, we would lose either VOIP, or a analog line and it would realize this and route around it. It wouldn't be until we were getting busy phone line complaints from outside, or a long distance bill that I would realize qwest had screwed up our lines, or the VOIP carrier had issues.
And now Google has the phone numbers of all your wife's friends. But that's another story...
yes, it has happened, but it is not illegal in all states.
Get a web developer
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
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
You mean people still use wired telephone service? I dropped wired service three years ago as the waste of money that it is and I have no regrets. Unless you have DSL for broadband internet access, or your work/business requires you to have it, or you live somewhere where there is no cell service, I see no reason to have wired telephone service anymore.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
It's been done, at least to a certain extent. Buzzeromatic. From a post I wrote about them on ReadWriteWeb: http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2009/09/filter-your-front-door-buzzero.php Apartment-dwellers, rejoice. Seattle-based startup Buzzeromatic is letting you take control of your own front door in a way that's smart and flexible. The premise is simple: Using Twilio's VoIP API, Buzzeromatic allows subscribers to grant access to visitors, allow delivery folks to leave voice messages,and create passwords for frequent guests, all from a web interface with SMS commands for when users are on the go. And yes, there's an app for that: The team told us their fully functional iPhone application is in the hopper. Co-founder Andres Krogh told us that he and a friend bootstrapped their startup. "The only reason we're able to pull it off is because of the explosion of commodity VoIP APIs like Twilio lately that make it somewhat cost effective." Users can customize their building buzzers' behavior from the web interface at any time. Krogh explained, "You can set up passwords for folks to let themselves in with, or have it call a bunch of numbers until it finds you (similar to Google Voice), or both. You can also let people leave voicemails at the door, if all else fails." They feel the password function will be particularly useful for those who have party guests or others, such as family members or a cleaning service, who need to be granted regular access to a user's apartment. Access can also be narrowed to a particular time of day; for example, your maid's password would only work during the day, but your pizza delivery guy's password could grant him access any time between noon and midnight.
You can also do that to stop them from raping the horse.
Yeah, he should have made a car analogy.
Microsoft is doing a lot with their communications server. Unified Communications doesn't directly apply to the at home scenario as you need a server. But it's pure gold for the corporate world. I kinda love being able to manage phone calls to my PC, get emails for missed calls/voicemail, redirect calls, set my status (away, busy, on the phone, in a meeting, etc), and manage an address book integrated contact list. Since it's an IP based network, my phone plugs connects over the wired network. I can move it around and still keep my phone number. It's really pretty nice. I can log in with Communicator from any PC and place calls from my work number, etc... Nice to get still get my work calls routed to my laptop while I'm out of the country traveling. If I had to use my cell, I'd end up with a huge bill. It's good stuff. If they're able to integrate this with windows mobile ala skype and provide a server for home users, it'd really dominate.
I do the same thing with my iPhone - both with contacts and with my calendar. And it goes both ways - entries I make in my iPhone contacts or calendar appear in my Gmail contacts or Google calendar almost instantly.
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
You may not have to supply your corded phone with electrical power, but the phone company darn well does, -48vdc as I recall. Phone substations have gigantic batteries and generators. I think these locations can go no longer than 48 hours without diesel fuel resupply.
And landlines sure can get overloaded just like cell towers. I several times after hurricanes have gotten the message "All lines are currently in service, please try your call later. Message 0939843 (made the message number up)"
Everybody here has a mobile phone with home zone function.
But of course, I have a better setup:
I have a little server, with a asterisk system, and a ISDN card. so i connected the ISDN-card to the landline, and asterisk to VoIP. which gives me a bi-directional gateway (Yes I secured it!), which i mostly use, to save money, by leaving the server running while away, and calling it over the internet via VoIP. letting me do local calls in all of the country for "free" (flatrate at home, WLAN in the hotel) while I'm far away, traveling. It also works in the other direction, if I happen to be online.
I also have a self-written answering machine script that acts like a butler, taking calls for me. Because the "conversation" is so short, it works. It can even greet known people with their names! And I can set it to away messages, right with all the other protocols in my instant messenger. It even works as a "phonewall", optionally only answering in: a) callers not in the blacklist, a) those, and non-anonymous callers, b) non-blacklisted callers in my phone book, c) non-blacklisted callers in a category of my phone book or c) nobody :) :D
People in the blacklist get the same message that they would get, if the number wouldn't exist. So it is perfectly stealthy.
My phone does not even ring.
And I get nice logs of everything.
And a mail when I receive a call. (Or a fax, if that ever will happen ^^)
Aaaahhh... good times for a geek! ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
We have an Open Source project called FreeSWITCH http://www.freeswitch.org/ that allows you to do this sort of thing with any computer running Windows MAC or most UNIX. It can be paired with traditional phones with a small analog adapter or a hardware telephony card from Sangoma http://www.sangoma.com./ But you could just get a software phone for free as well and play around with it.
Without reading your links, it doesn't shock me that you can get a DWI on a bicycle, but it does shock me on a horse for some reason. My argument to the judge would be, I wasn't driving, the horse was. I can't endanger someone additionally by being intoxicated on a horse, versus sober on a horse. It'd be pretty hard to get a horse to do something s/he thought was dangerous just because you were intoxicated, unless you trained it like a police horse to trample someone on command.
No, but i've got them on my main home PC, on my work PC to which I redirect my home calls in case I'm spending the Evening/WE at work, and on my mobile for free outgoing calls over wifi.
I'm sorry, I thought I was kinda answering your question.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
However, being able to push something like this out to business and corporate clients may well be a viable opportunity.
Microsoft already makes it. http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/microsoft/office-communications-server-2007-public-beta-launches.asp
The phonebook syncs to Exchange/Office Communicator, and you log in via active directory on the phone.
I fear the Y2038 bug
Like pay the phone bill? Surely not.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I find it interesting the call for broadband to be an utility without the corresponding call for reliability.
Have you ever tried to approach a power plant or large infrastructure? They generally have guard stands (commonly armed now) and large buffer zones. On the other hand the first tier telephone network buildings in my area stick out like sore thumbs and are 30 feet away from the main thoroughfare.
Now you may have a point about the network operations center and the larger switching loctations for the phone network, but I still wouldn't bet that a criminal (notice I don't say terrorist) could figure out how to find one.
Side note, even using the word 'terrorist' to describe someone breaking the law to inflict fear gives the idiot sociopath power and creates fear in others. You should strive to declaw them by just calling them common criminals.
The Siemens Gigaset SL78H does most of the things you say. You can sync to your PC, have a text message sent to your mobile whenever someone leaves you a voice message, sync the address book to other handsets or to your mobile via bluetooth. http://gigaset.com/
The Panasonic KX-TG5776S allow you to upload an addressbook as a .csv file from your PC using a USB cable.
Timothy, your question does carry a hint of mac-centricity. So I'll give you two options for that platform which might both interest you even in combination. I've known Phlink for several years and the Siemens solution is new: 1. Siemens DECT phones now allow synching with the Mac's address book via bluetooth. http://gigaset.com/shc/0,1935,hq_en_0_171451_rArNrNrNrN_parent%253A171447,00.html and 2. OvoLab's excellent Phlink allows you to perform all kinds of phone automation even (or maybe unfortunately) without being a VoIP solution. Here you can use in-built workflows, apple script or develop automator flows to your heart's content for calling, accepting/rejecting/logging calls, answering machine recording, notification, faxing, etc. http://www.ovolab.com/phlink/index.php Enjoy!
They aren't out yet, but there are some android home phones coming.
NIMble Android desk phone
T-Mobile Android home phone
panasonic kx-tga9341t, 5 handsets + base for $100!-) shared phonebook/msgs/cid, plus talking cid:-) my only complaint is the tcid is often hard to understand (it speaks the name, not the number, can't be switched)-: and u can't screen the incoming msgs on a handset, only on the base.
Horses are not omniscient. It really isn't that hard to construct a scenario where your 'inability' to lead a horse would lead to the endangerment of property or lives.
- Suppose you lose control of the horse and it starts galloping down a crowded sidewalk, or worse, starts bucking.
- Suppose you try to cross the road and it (because it wasn't bred to look both ways) steps in front of traffic. Deer aren't the only animals that'll freeze when headlights hit them.
- Suppose you pass out on the horse while it's walking you home and you slip off and hit your head/into the river/a passing car.
I have Siemens Gigaset S685 IP that
1) has import/export on base station that then replicates out to handsets
2) has bluetooth on handsets for contacts sync
I love Asterisk as much as the next guy, but it DOES NOT SOLVE THE PARENT's problem on its own... The original poster wanted a way to sync phonebook directory and view call logs. Asterisk can do the call logs, but VOIP phones and an auto-configuration system is really needed for shared/distributed directory. Unfortunately, that's where the cost starts going up.
PBX In A Flash, combined with an assortment of Aastra or Polycom VOIP stations (cordless also available) gets my vote; there are modules for PBXIAF (FreePBX modules) that allow for phone configuration and centralized directory updates. Yay for free software. Unfortunately, good entry-level SIP VOIP phones are still around $200 a piece, and I doubt that the original poster expected to shell out $800 just to get his phonebook shared between his phones.
Add another $200 if he wants the ability to use his existing landline (entry-level Sangoma card).
Siemens Gigaset handsets have the functionality to sync with Outlook. I'm not sure if it's automatic or manual, but it might be something to look into. The more advanced sets support both traditional and VoIP telephony, aswell as having numerous handsets making numerous calls over.
Asterisk sounds great, until you get tot he part where you need their $400+ comm card....
Pots hardware, a generic VoIP provider, and a google voice number... Done.
And a UPS, so that when the power goes out you can still call out in an emergency.
iPhone does the same thing with Google contacts. I can enter them in gmail and they show up on my phone, or enter them on my phone and they show up in gmail.
Gone!
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: Wind and/or wind-blown debris took down overheard lines Rain (flooding) damaged underground lines and infrastructure Utility power failed, first taking out battery powered distribution equipment and then when the CO's generators ran out of fuel, everything connected to that CO went dark.
Perhaps more importantly, most calls for help did nothing more than tie up already overloaded emergency services call-takes and dispatchers who, for several of the early hours of the storm could only inform the callers that emergency services were not responding until conditions were safe enough.
Now, granted, this is an extreme case, but I should point out that my cell phone worked throughout the event. The carrier's network suffered from congestion for a while, until they got the word out that texting would be a more reliable away to contact those one needed to contact. The analog phone line has it's place, but it is, in most cases, not the panacea the parent would have us believe.
Having a line line is great, especially with more people in the house.
As for the virtual phone book, most cordless phones I've seen recently (ie the past five years) have included a feature to push all contacts to other phones on the same line. Maybe it's time to upgrade the phone rather than add a computer system to the works?
Yours seems antiquated. My 4 handset Panasonic system has a shared phonebook - add a number to one, it shows on all instantly. Also it sets its own time off of the phone network.
Step 2 would be to switch to a VOIP provider that can give you all of the call logging and other things you talk about. We have Vonage but any VOIP provider has all that stuff, and more.
You can get a DUI for riding a horse. At least in Australia A guy in Northern Territory thought he was clever riding his horse home from the pub while drunk. Got pulled up and ticketed for it. http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2009/08/30/80091_ntnews.html
Who is this their that you speak of? Look around and you'll find them much cheaper, and they work just fine.
Horses are not omniscient.
In other words,
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think."
Thanks, I'll be here all the week. Try the fish.
John
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.
John
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.
here's the real question though.........
how do you stop an AC raping his own hand perpetually?
You jest, but all of the urban sprawl isn't doing us any good - and our easy access to transportation is the biggest enabler. All of the green hippie bullshit aside, we'd do well to get off of our fat asses to walk or bike to the local store, but it's just not practical in most locations because everything is so spread out.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I came across this once, but I haven't really researched far into it. There's a system that was at least once sold by a company named CyberGenie. It's a landline phone, and it does connect to your desktop PC to transfer your phonebook, at least. It may have further capabilities worth looking into.
One exists right now and is very simple to setup, you can also buy it at a local electronics store. It is the iPhone + MobielMe + Mac computer. You can sync wireless, automatically and both directions between all the components. Works great for me.
A landline you say. Gosh haven't had one of those for many years, I applied for one six months ago, but I'm told that in my area they are out of capacity and can't offer me one at this time. This happens to be in Sandton, Johannesburg, which incidentally happens to be the premier business hub of the whole of Africa. To say I'm pissed off would be an understatement. I'm paying ~$50/mo for a crappy internet service which at that price offers 3.5 GB traffic per month. I can't even download that much in a month because the connection is so shit. 9 times out of 10 a page load fails. I've had it up to HERE with this bollox, and i'm going in to their head office next month with a grenade.
Would a Skype phone do the job? Okay, so IP telephony doesn't have the reliability of a fixed land line, but for everyday use it should be fine.
Skype can:
- on my computer, access my contacts list in Outlook
- keep a list of recent events (calls and conversations)
- do voicemail
- do call forwarding
My question is:
Are there any Skype phones that can talk to a contacts list on some specified computer? (I assume not.)
I got one of these years ago, messed with it for a bit but never really took full advantage of it. Not sure what types of products they have now-a-days but it might be worth looking into...I know voicemail was stored on the computer with remote retrieval and you could set up different mail boxes for different users and ppl would press a number for who they wanted to talk to and i think only their handset would ring. Been awhile tho so I'm not positive.
www.cygnion.net
(I've got a slightly used older model I could probably part with. I know the headset battery needs replaced because it was never really used and put in my closet years ago.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Cordless_Phone_System
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?
Are you in the US so Google Voice is available to you?
Do you have computers or mobile web access near your four phones? Contacts happily live there and can serve both your landline as well as mobile phones.
It keeps a log of caller IDs. It keeps a log of Voicemails, SMS, recorded, placed, received and missed separately from the history off all of those.
It forwards not just notifications, but the voicemails themselves, as well as transcribing them to text (sometimes poorly, sometimes amazingly).
There are additional great features beyond what you asked for as well. (It's free, it permits free calls in the CONUS.)
To make an outgoing call, I can simply click call a contact. On my mobile, select a contact and call. I can choose if I want to connect via landline or my cellphone. In a moment, whichever will ring for me, I pickup and hear the ringing until they answer.
an horse analogy is LIKE a car analogy
Well there's the Fritz!Box series of DSL routers with telephony functions. Towards the landline they support ISDN and that old quasi analog system used in some developing countries. It runs Linux and is fairly hackable. It also supports preety much all DECT GAP handsets even with a sampling rate of 16 kHz.
Well I guess in the US the problem is also that phone connections were horribly bad. When I listen to call-in radio shows from the US I'm often shocked to hear how bad phone calls sound.
The rest of the world is used to bit-transparent PCM connections with a delay of just a few samples even on the cheapest providers. That's _way_ better than VoIP or cellular networks.
And ISDN also typically is far more reliable than even DSL. Under bad conditions DSL usually breaks far quicker than ISDN.
Try the fish.
"You can lead a fish to water, and you can make him (or her, I didn't check) sink." There, tried the fish.
Check out www.casabi.com. They offer a home phone system with most of the features the original author was looking for.
I think you need something like this:
http://www.buy.com/prod/thomson-ge-dect-6-0-28128ee2-cell-fusion-cordless-phone-1-x-phone-line/q/loc/101/listingID/30432828/204212006.html?adid=17653
It's Outlook-compatible and can be used with bluetooth-enabled cell phones.
Most smart phones will have a similar capability. I have a Windows Mobile based phone and Exchange at work. My contacts are stored on the Exchange server and sync when changed. If I want a new contact, I can put it in through Outlook instead of using the phone. I'm pretty sure I could do something similar with google (My phone syncs my google calender) but I use the Exchange stuff because I need it set up anyway.
I'm in the industry and don't even do that, it's a waste of my time.
That's the general point the reply was making to begin with.
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.
It connects to the network via ethernet cable and synchronises time via a time server, it can obtain a full addressbook via my skype account.
If I want to make a call I can choose to make the call via skype or via the land line, similarly it will receive calls both through the landline and skype.
If you do not want to use skype you could just consider it an application to edit your addressbook. I can have multiple handsets on the same base station and they all update simultaneously.
Using skype it is much closer to cross platform than something that is tied to Outlook or some other Microsoft application.
Slashdot Beta should die a painful death.
being able to push something like this out to business and corporate clients may well be a viable opportunity.
Which is why you can get commercial digital PBX phone systems with built in address books.
which is totally what she said
Hi folks
I am using a VOIP acount in Germany from sipgate.com
This thing just works, is cheap AND is free of charge.
Have fun
The separation of phone books between handsets is a feature, not a defect. Our home office handset stores business numbers, the bedroom handset stores personal numbers, and the teenager's handset stores her friends'. Who wants to paw through dozens of 'jef's, 'bif's, and 'sean's to find 'law office'?
It's called Skype!
Why doesn't my horse drawn buggy come with a mp3 player?
Can I get a Betamax VCR that does HDMI?
Your landline phones aren't getting updated technology because they are themselves outdated technology. They may not be entirely obsolete at this point, but don't expect to get technological advances into them on a regular basis.
Hand him a keyboard...
Life is a Game. Play to Win.
ah but they can still type with one hand :P
...My current setup is a Panasonic system that has 4 cordless phones over one base station.
Ooh, fancy. I'm styling a Western Electric 302 myself.
ADSI is Analog Display Services Interface, an interface standard for extending the interface on analog phones. So there are phones that support a standard interface as mentioned in the first point above, they're just hard to find. With an ADSI phone and an Asterisk server, you oould just conceivably do this by bringing in your landline to Asterisk and then back out to your analog sets with whatever additional info you chose. Manufacturers don't really talk about whether their phones are ADSI compliant, and there's very little documentation on ADSI. I personally gave up on this project because of the difficulty of finding a cheap ADSI phone, and the cost of going analog-VoIP-analog.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
> I feel old
First phone I remember was fully equipped with voice recognition. No buttons or dial, very minimalist styling, you just picked up the phone and spoke the number you required.
We've gone a long way in 50 years.....
Andrew Yeomans
Paying the bill maintains his phone service, not the phone.
I don't care why you're posting AC
Of course your landline phone needs external power. Do you believe in magic?
Vtech has a phone that can sync all of you contacts from you cell phone. Then sync your contact manager with your cell through google.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/29/new-vtech-cordless-can-download-cellphone-address-books-over-blu/
Unless you never call a cell phone, you certainly have to deal with "are you there? you're breaking up" ! :)
What about home alarms? I am not going to pay ADT/Brinks/CompanyNameHere $35 a month when I can get a local alarm monitoring company to perform the same service for the same price per quarter ($12.99 per month). They don't offer VOIP or cellular connectivity. There monitoring centers are just as widespread as ADT's so the argument about using a local company in the event of widescale issues are irrelevant. Plus, my company requires me to carry a cell so they pay for it and Im not going to carry another personal phone, thats just silly.
They are actually pretty decent. Yes it would be nice to have downloadable ringtones and a USB interface on the base, but let's be honest--how much did you pay for them?
OK, NOW do you expect them to be über fancy? I didn't think so. But they are better than you realize. The address book being for each phone is a *feature* (the phone in my wife's office has her contacts, the one in my office has mine, and the one in the bedroom has friends & family. Hellooooo, not all of us live alone).
I spent 60-70 USD about 2 years ago and I just expected them to be decent phones. The caller ID display is bonus (now that I have an ooma and get caller ID), the phones survive drops pretty well, they use normal AAA (rechargable) batteries so I was able to replace the batteries in the heavily used office phones with higher rated cells, the interface is not too complex (important for non-geeks like my wife and 7-year-old).
Buddy look. If you want a fancy phone you have to *buy one*. Don't expect to pay 64.99 for 4 phones plus digital answering machine and get a damn iPhone. ooma has some snazzy new phone that goes with their new base station. That might be what you want, check it out. It does cost more for 1 phone than the Pannys do for 4, but hey, that's up to you. Make a better choice this time.
Yes, but there's countless stories of horses returning to camp/home from battle with their wounded (or dead) riders - or no riders at all.
I'd feel more comfortable hopping on a horse that knew the way to my house than trying to drive.
Horses are like chaffeurs that poop a lot.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
You ever wonder if the reason those stories are told is because 9 out of ten of the horses just wandered off with their rider, never to be seen again?
whom do you go through for voip?
One shot usually suffices.
You can get analogue PBX systems with half a dozen phones on eBay quite cheaply (well, you could a few years ago). Most of these have an RS-232 port on the main box and you can control it via that. Lots of companies replaced them with SIP-based infrastructure and sold off the old systems very cheaply.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Well, yeah, we do, for two reasons.
Reason one: Verizon bundles the land line with internet and cable TV. Not having the land line means buying the other two ala carte, which is about the same total price. The land line is essentially free.
Reason two: Cellular service sucks at our house. Even though I can see the pole from my front yard, (about two blocks away) I get barely one bar in the living room.
Reason two a: Since I'm on call 24/7 and often work from home, the lack of reliable voice communications is unacceptable.
Reason two b: If a member of my family calls 911 on the land line, the operator automatically gets our address. If they call on the cell phone, precise location depends on dodgy satellite reception.
Reason two c: Wife makes long calls to her friends and families, hates talking on cell phone.
There's actually a (minor) third reason: When we were allocated our phone number 20 years ago, we got a number ending in double zero, which in this area is usually reserved for businesses. I could transfer that number to a cell phone, but that inevitably starts an argument over whom is going to give up their current cell phone number.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
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)
My trixbox Asterisk system at home does this halfway (http://carlstrom.com/trixbox/). For my Cisco phones, I generate an XML phone directory from my Emacs BBDB contacts database which is then served to the phones over HTTP. Unforunately my Hitachi Wi-Fi phones have to have the directory synced via USB, even though all other settings can be set via a web server. Certainly there other other options for Wi-Fi VoIP handsets that probably won't have this problem.
keep a log of caller IDs
Asterisk keeps a CDR (Call Details Record) database with that information
or even forward me new voicemail notifications.
I haven't bothered setting it up, but Asterisk systems can forward voice mail as email. I do have web access to the sound files, but largely just access via the phone handsets.
Does anyone know if such a system exists?
I believe that you can have what you want from an Asterisk based system, but the hardware isn't cheap. The computer to power it doesn't have to be anything special though, I use an old discarded 450MHz Dell box.
I'll note that I am strange and use my Asterisk system with a POTS connection, just using VoIP inside the house. My wife insists on it for emergency power-outage 911 reasons
In the US, POTS calls are digitized at the central office at an 8kHz sampling rate, 8-bit mu-law samples. With the exception of mu-law vs. a-law, that's the same as what's used in, e.g., Europe, and the difference has no noticeable effect on sound quality--either way, it's still bandlimited to 4kHz (actually 3.6kHz). The callers on radio call-in shows in other countries don't sound any better than the ones in the US. And while doing the ADC at the phone is certainly nice, it doesn't have any significant effect on sound quality (unless you have an actual fault in the phone line that's introducing hum or static, in which case ISDN wouldn't work either). And yes, I had an ISDN line and ISDN phone back in the late '90s to early '00s and am very familiar with how a end-to-end digital call with no compression sounds. I liked it for its call control features (buttons to answer different lines, conference, hold, etc...), not because the sound quality was any better.
Well, but you also have that weired in-band signalling for your numbers so it takes you _ages_ to dial a number.
I guess part of the quality advantage is that ISDN-phones use piecoelectric or dynamic microphones which sound _far_ better than the carbon mikes used in analog phones.
Well I guess in the US the problem is also that phone connections were horribly bad. When I listen to call-in radio shows from the US I'm often shocked to hear how bad phone calls sound.
The rest of the world is used to bit-transparent PCM connections with a delay of just a few samples even on the cheapest providers.
The US uses 8-bit -law G.711 encoding with 8KHz samples, much of the rest of the world uses 8-bit 8KHz A-law G.711. I'd be pretty surprised if you noticed the difference. Sometimes telcos will use G.726 ADPCM, but this is done across the whole world.
That's _way_ better than VoIP or cellular networks.
That statement needs a lot of qualification because in many cases it isn't true. Cellular networks use GSM or AMR-NB codecs, which are indeed lower quality then G.711 (although full rate AMR-NB is only marginally worse than G.711). VoIP, on the other hand, has a much wider choice of codecs, with Speex and AMR-WB, to name just two, providing a much better quality then G.711.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I've got a Siemens Gigaset which connects to POTS and has SIP capability. You can download and upload the address book (slow) to each phone using a web control panel. I also have a SIP account, you can generally get these to email you voicemail.
It syncs to a NTP time server and has a reasonably flexible dial plan which you can use to control which calls use SIP and which go via your landline. It also displays the local weather info on each handset. Unless you go for a full blown Asterisk setup a Gigaset is probably a good second.
As noted in other posts, there are plenty of Panasonic, Siemens and Uniden models that allow you to share/update the directory across handets & base. Siemens has the Gigaset SL785 that will allow you to share addresses from your pc through USB or Bluetooth.