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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?'
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/.
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.
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?
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.
Google much?
http://www.voicecallcentral.com/
"Keep at least 3-6 full bottles of hard alcohol on hand, a 2 week resignation notice,..." - Poetmatt
Pots hardware, a generic VoIP provider, and a google voice number... Done.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Open Peak
It is as though they took an iPhone and applied it to a workplace telephone system.
Unless the responsible adult is having a heart attack/stroke/seizure and the tyke has to call 911 for them.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Because some of us live in backward countries (*cough* CANADA *cough*) where a cellphone is ludicously over-priced.
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.
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.
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
I agree but I also have privacy concerns with Vonage. Granted POTS service has records of the same information. It's just a bit disquieting to get voicemails via E-Mail. Now they're on some third party server which now the Feds say isn't protected by the 4th Ammendment. Also, Vonage is sketchy when it comes to your voice conversations across the 'net. I've asked what they do to insure the privacy of those conversations, granted now all POTS service traverses packet switched networks once they're beyond the LEC but then again those are in dedicated trunks. It's just too damn easy to decode a SIP session and now it's a party line.
There are Asterisk like solutions that are small form factor that I've considered but now getting the SIP trunking to work is a question.. I could use Skype and peer with it but then again, I guess
I'll just keep a basic POTS service for the alarm, and my Thermos, oh and this Red Stapler..
I think I'll just go back to two cans and some waxed string. At least I could "see" man in the middle attacks on my conversations.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
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.
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.