Where have all the good phones gone?

By Daniel Briere, Network World, 04/11/07

 Start a discussion    Print article

 Comments (1)    Print article

In my office, I get to try out all sorts of new gear and technologies. And with all this testing come boxes full of gear that didn't quite work as promised, or didn’t earn a place in my daily office life.

The biggest of these boxes is lowest on the high-tech sophistication chart -- my collection of tested (and rejected) desktop phones. The problem with this box is that it’s got mostly new equipment in it. Why? It seems that no one can design a decent small office or home office (SOHO) phone -- plain old telephone service (POTS) or VoIP -- anymore.

It seems like manufacturers have simply dropped the ball when it comes to the needs of the small business and SOHO market (not to mention the modern networked family, which behaves a lot like a small business when it comes to telecom). The huge gap in the market between the $29.99 consumer phones and the high-end, enterprise-ready phones is being addressed very poorly by the marketplace.

I define a decent SOHO phone as one that you can do all the basics -- make a call, put it on hold, switch to a wireless handset midstream, view CallerID, conference multiple lines and so on.

It seems that no matter which vendor I try, I walk away disappointed. Looking at my desk today, you would think I’m either the most technologically inept person in the world, or the most advanced -- I’ve got seven phones on my desk, eight if you count my headset, each for different applications. I cannot get a decent phone that simply works, and works simply.

For example, my Olympia Skype phone has great range and clarity, and the untethered Skype experience is great. But it’s not Wi-Fi so I have to have a separate phone for that, and being an early model, it has no conferencing or speakerphone capabilities. The latest model will bridge POTS and a Skype call, but it’s the only one I know of that will.

I’ve tried some of the Wi-Fi Skype phones but the co-presence on landline is not there. Most are geared towards road use, not the dual role of desktop and travel use. I use my ZyXel Wi-Fi phone for my non-Skype Wi-Fi applications. It works fine for that application and that alone.

Featured Whitepapers

The Trend from UNIX to Linux in SAP(r) Data Centers

LinuxCast Listen to the latest Linux news.

About Us | Contact Us | Advertising Info | Terms of Service/Privacy

Copyright, 2006-2007 Network World, Inc. All rights reserved.