Tag: WiFi cordless phone

Article

BT’s new home phone is as smart as your Android mobile | Engadget

From the horse’s mouth

British Telecom

Press Release

My Comments

There have been some attempts by device manufacturers and established telecoms companies to provide an advanced home telephone to justify to residential customers the idea of keeping an existing landline phone service. It was something we used to do before the availability of cost-effective mobile phones especially smartphones and was the main business for these phone companies.

Examples of these phones include the Telstra T-Hub series which had a separate handset and a separate tablet which ran on a proprietary operating system along with various Android phones that didn’t have mobile connectivity but could work with a Wi-Fi home network.

BT used to offer an Android home phone but this didn’t have access to the Google Play Store which had all of the apps available for the Android platform. Rather this relied on the Opera Browser app store as a place to purchase these apps. Now they have just launched to the UK market the Home SmartPhone SII which has some interesting features.

The BT Home SmartPhone II is based on a fully-fledged Android 4.2 phone with integrated 2Gb memory which can be expanded like most Android smartphones. As well, you can download apps from the Google Play app store which has a large plethora of apps. You could even do things like load one of the many casual games like Candy Crush Saga or even install some of the “over-the-top” communications solutions like Viber,Skype or WhatsApp which are also supported with a front-facing camera for videocalls.

There is also the ability to filter out nuisance calls like “unidentified”, “number-blocked” or “payphone” calls so there is less risk of receiving unwanted calls  But this phone may be a hard sell with younger people who are sold on the idea of a mobile-phone-centric household but would appeal to older households who still place value on the traditional telephone handset in the home, especially as a common “catch-all” solution.

News and Blog articles

DSP Group’s Android DECT / Wi-Fi Home Phone Reference Design Has Me Drooling | eHomeUpgrade

DSP Multimedia Handset – Android Based Home Phone | Android Community

From the horse’s mouth

DSP Group’s “video brochure” available on YouTube

DSP Group’s Web page on this phone

My comments on this phone

Most of the news concerning Android is focused on smartphones that are pitched as cellular mobile phones. But this phone is an intent to take Android to a new territory – the home cordless phone which is used as a household’s “common phone”.

Here, it uses VoIP technology through a Wi-Fi network (which nearly all home networks are based around) but can work as a DECT-based cordless phone. But it can work with a home network by providing DLNA functionality, access to home automation, consumer-electronics control; as well as being a hand-held Internet terminal. Telephony service providers like Telstra can customise the phone to suit their needs such as providing a branded customer experience like they do with mobile phones. This can also extend to hosted-PBX providers providing this phone as part of an IP-based business phone system for a small business.

This has been achieved through the use of Google Android as the phone’s operating environment and the phone being able to gain access to applications provided for the Google Android MarketPlace. This can open up this home phone for all sorts of innovative applications. I would also extend this to business-related applications including order-entry for restaurants or tourist information for the hospitality industry.

This phone has become the first reference design for an in-home / in-premises cordless phone to have an interface and level of functionality that puts it on a par with today’s smartphones. It will also definitely appeal to the competitive “triple-play” marketplace that is being built out in different countries around the world and could herald the beginning of a new age of “in-premises” telephony.