T-Mobile’s push to rid the planet of landlines with their T-Mobile HotSpot @Home UMA program has started to catch on. The idea of dropping your traditional landline in favor of using your wireless minutes at home is getting more and more traction around the world. I personally haven’t used a landline (although I subscribe to digital phone service in order to get the bundled TV/internet/phone deal on the cheap) in a handful of years. Why pay extra for a landline when you can just use your huge daily allotment of wireless minutes (you do have plenty of wireless minutes, don’t you)?
Well, Panasonic has realized that a major barrier to wireless-only adoption by many city-dwellers will be the lack of wireless/cellular reception while indoors. It’s great and all to promote the use of mobile phones in all places at all times, but that idea falls flat in the face of poor reception. So, Panny has drummed up the Panasonic Link To Cell base station.
The Link To Cell is basically a Bluetooth connected base station that tethers to your cellphone. Just as a Bluetooth headset will ring/vibrate when your cellphone receives an incoming call, the Panasonic Link To Cell will ring your home phone handset when you get an incoming call on your mobile phone.
Your cellphone connects to a single Link To Cell base station, allowing you to place the cellphone that one particular corner that gets good signal reception. All the receiving handsets connect to the base station. You can connect up to six satellite handsets throughout the house, and each handset is equipped with DECT 6.0, talking caller ID, a night mode (determine when the phone rings and when to stay silent), ringerID (set different ringtones for different callers), and call block. As a nice, green-touch, the Panasonic home phone handsets are RoHS certified.
If 100% wireless is your goal but you just don’t have the cellular coverage inside your house to make truly landline-less living a reality, give the Panasonic Link To Cell a go. It’s available now for $99.99, which includes one home phone handset. Each additional handset will cost $39.99.
[Via: Gadgetell]