The Home Phone

Sometimes, I wonder why the phone can't be more intelligent. A lot of smart people are working on cell phones and pdas, but the basic home phone system remains essentially unimproved.

We have three kids, five in the family, so we bought a Panasonic KXTG6074B a few years ago at Target. Base station and 3 or 4 satellite phones. It announces calls based on caller ID: "Call from lohs gatos dog" when the Los Gatos Dog & Cat Hospital calls. When a telemarketer calls from out of state, it often announces "Call from six-one-seven-five-two-three-oh-nine-one-eight." It repeats this several times. We're watching TV. The phone rings. The phone rings again. Then it says all those numbers, rings again, repeats all the numbers, and rings again before finally shutting up.

So, I'm thinking, life can be better than this. First I want a button on the phone: IGNORE. Cell phones have it. But when I press IGNORE, it says "Always?" If I press the YES button fast enough, it says, "Voice Mail?" and if I press NO fast enough, that number is now permanently blocked. When they call, they get a message saying so. "The owner of this phone number has permanently blocked calls from this number: six-one-seven-five-two...."

When I press IGNORE, the default is just this once. That's what happens if I don't do anything else. Ignore just this once instantly silences the phone. It gives the caller a message explaining "The owner of this phone number cannot be disturbed at the moment. Please leave a message."

If I press IGNORE and say YES to Always, the default is to offer the caller voice mail. That means that every time that number calls me, they'll hear "Please leave a message."

The way the phone works in the US is that they send a 48-volt signal down the line to make the phone ring. In the olden days, that voltage powered the coil that rang the bell. The phone most certainly does not have to respond to that signal by ringing a freaking bell or by making any sound at all. A few seconds later, Caller ID information comes down the line. At that point, the phone should "ring" based on who is calling.

Our Panasonic has programmable rings for different people, but it's kind of dumb (it doesn't recognize that one person can have two or three numbers that they call from). Also, I can't remember which cheesy tune goes with which person. Why can't I record the announcement for the people whose calls I want? "It's Mom!" would be kind of to-the-point. Imagine--instead of (ring) (ring) "Call from Sporleder Bert", we'd get (ding) "It's Mom!". Man, that would be convenient.

I'm not Pavlov's dog. Why in the world would I install a bell in my house that outsiders can ring at any time and then train myself to get up and rush to the phone whenever I heard it? When I buy a phone it should work for me, not for the people who want to talk to me. But I do understand that there could be an emergency.

So, when my phone tells you to "Please leave a message," you can enter a six-digit code I've given you that will cause the phone to get my attention if possible. Good human interface design should be like a good servant. The butler stands at the door, clears his throat and says quietly, "Your mother is on the phone." If you ignore him, he goes away. But if Mom gives him the six-digit code, the butler shakes me awake and hands me the phone. At that point, the phone rings really loudly.

Another way most of us know something might be important is when the house phone rings, we don't answer it, and our cell phone immediately rings. Someone to whom we've given our mobile number to is anxious to reach us. Depending on your friend and family situation, that may or may not be important (for me, it would be).

Oh, and police and fire departments are experimenting with reverse-911, where they have a machine call to notify you of problems in your neighborhood. The police department also routinely calls you if there's a 911 hangup or a neighbor reports something. So--give them your six-digit code. Our police department maintains electronic records of gate combinations, alarm company phone numbers per house, and even alarm deactivation codes--another code won't overwhelm them.

Okay. Now connect the phone to your wireless network and see what we can do. For starters, we could log everything. Why not? Keep the phone company honest. Answer trivial questions about how often you call someone vs. how often they call you. My inner geek is showing. How about seamless integration with VoIP?

More later. I've got issues with my TiVo.