This is really cool. "Simply enter the lost phone number and listen for it to ring.
When you find it, hang up and you're done!"

(Currently available only in the US and apparently you have to use the parentheses, spaces and hyphen).

How is this better than what you'd do anyway viz. ring your mobile by using a landline or asking someone else either to ring it for you or let you use their phone? Or does this system sound your mobile even if that's switched off?

Fred, it is different in that if you are alone with no other phone around and just your pc, you can still call your phone. It will not work if said phone is turned off. Now if they could just come up with a tv remote with a phone number I'd be tickled.

quote:

Originally posted by Kendor:
Now if they could just come up with a tv remote with a phone number I'd be tickled.

Which reminds me.Many years ago, when TV remotes first appeared, a friend bought a new TV. "Did you get one with a remote control?", I asked. "Hell, no",he said," What do you think I have children for?"

quote:

Fred, it is different in that if you are alone with no other phone around and just your pc, you can still call your phone...

Assuming your p.c. works through a phone line, why would you not be able ring on your home phone?

Who has a home phone these days? I don't.

Landlines Disappearing

What kind of line does your p.c. use?

"Who has a home phone these days?"

According to your article, most people.

"The survey covered the first half of 2007 and found that 13.6% of households during that time had at least one wireless phone and no landline phone."

Wonder what the other 86% used?

and

"These figures paint a slightly rosier picture for the number of mobile-only phone users compared to a Harris Interactive poll released in June 2007, which indicated that 11% of households of U.S. Internet users used mobile phones only. Sixty-three percent of these households used multiple lines, while 18% used only landline phone service."

63% + 18% = 81%
That's a pretty high percentage of people with landlines.

Many people are finding that landlines are good things to have in emergencies that cut power to cell towers. (Only corded landlines work then; home cordless rely on electricity from the house.) St. Louis had 2 such blackouts with 24 months just a couple of years ago; one from a freak windstorm, the other from a severe ice storm. The wind storm outage lasted 5 days for me, and 7 for many others. I think the ice storm outage lasted over a week for some people; I lost power for 3 days.

There is no doubt that some variation of cell phones are the future, but until the problem of occasional blackouts is solved, there will always be a use for corded landlines.

I keep a regular phone by the broadband line to the home computer: they share the socket.

Doesn't everybody?

Who is it that cuts off their landline phone service but keeps a phone line for the computer? Don't know about the States, but over here you pay for the landline whether you have a landline phone on it or not.

Powercuts? The regular landline phone I use is a remote but I keep a standard handset too because the remote might not work if there were a powercut.

My cable television service provides my internet access. It's really fast.

Expanding on Freds Post

The way things work in the UK (and quite well in some cases ) is you Pay a Line rental to British Telecom and extras such as 1471

The Call charges bill can be from any Other source

We pay ours to "Talk Talk"(A Cell Phone sales store) and get a lot of Free local calls

quote:

Originally posted by Kendor:
My cable television service provides my internet access. It's really fast.

Ah, right. But don't they automatically provide a landline phone service with the package? The providers here do (except that almost nobody has cable: it's all satellite.There's only one cable provider left in the whole of Britain )

PS 1471 (Bedstor's post)is the number we ring to find the number of the last caller.You can ring it back on one click on the handset. The phone here shows the number and gives that service anyway but it's a useful option on non-display phones.