Hold the Phone!

from automatic dialers to answering machines, here's a seductive look at the latest in telephone technology

After taking a few years to get off the ground, the era of plug-it-in-yourself telephone wizardry is shifting into high gear. The Federal Government opened up the phone lines for you to install your own phone back in December 1977, but now you can hook up decorator phones, answering machines, cordless telephones, automatic dialers ... all kinds of gizmos laden with microcircuit chips, so even your fingers do less walking. There will be even more action, probably in January 1983, when the cost of leasing telephone equipment will no longer be buried within the monthly service charge. It will be even easier then to compare how much it really costs to rent versus buying a phone. If you're venturing into the plug-it-in-yourself world for the first time, here are a few things you should know that will make your transition a smooth one.

First of all, you're not obligated to buy or lease a telephone from your local phone company, whether it be a Bell company, a GTE subsidiary or another independent. A 1977 Federal Communications Commission ruling gives you the right to have a standard mini outlet in your home so you can hook up your own phone. If your place doesn't have a phone jack, the local phone company must install one. There will probably be a one-time installation charge and, perhaps, a negligible monthly charge for using the phone company's outlet and inside wiring. But with at least one jack, you can plug in a splitter (such as Telco's 2-For-l Adapter), which enables you to hook up two pieces of gear--a phone and an answering machine, for example--without having a second jack put in.

If your home is already wired, not with mini outlets but with the older, four-pronged outlets, you're in good shape. All you need are adapters (such as Telco's Convert-A-Plug), which are readily available at phone and electronics stores.

While the phone company must do something for you, albeit with charge, you must do something for them in return. Only FCC-certified equipment should be plugged into your jack. Then you need to call your phone company and advise them of the equipment model number and Ringer Equivalency Number, or R.E.N., as stated on the unit. Different gadgets require different currents to ring their chimes. Using noncertified gear could cause problems with the local circuits. If some difficulty is traced to your illicit gadget, you'll be held responsible for repair costs. Plugging in legit gear gets you off the hook.

Next, if you're accustomed to (nay, expect) the speed of Touch-Tone pushbutton dialing, you may be in for a surprise on some gadgets that dial out: Push buttons do not guarantee that there's tone dialing inside the unit.

Most telephone-equipment manufacturers try to make equipment that is compatible with all local phone systems. Unfortunately, not all local systems respond to push-button tones. But all can accept what is known as pulse dialing-- the click, click, click kind of dialing found on rotary-dial phones. Some systems accept a pulse rate of 20 clicks, or pulses per second (pps), but the lowest common denominator is ten pps. So most of the push-button-type phones you see in stores electronically convert the pushbutton figures to ten pps. You can push the buttons as fast as you would on a Touch-Tone phone, because the phone "remembers" the order in which you've pushed the buttons while slowly pulsing out the numbers. If the number you're calling has lots of eights, nines and zeros, you can expect to wait four or five seconds before the pulses catch up.

On the other hand, if you're using a rotary-dial phone and your phone system accepts tone dialing, you can replace the handset mouthpiece with one of Buscorn Systems" Soft-Touch dialers. These not only give you tone dialing with buttons on the mouthpiece but also store 20, 40 or 80 phone numbers for speed dialing.

Remember, too, that while do-it-yourself phone gadgets are easy to plug in, many are very sophisticated pieces of electronic equipment with features and conveniences not readily apparent from looking at the controls. You'll save yourself much time and trouble if you read the owner's manual first.

Now let's take a look at the latest trends and features in phone equipment.

Space-Age Styling

If a cartoon-character telephone seems a bit Mickey Mouse to you, there are still some interesting alternatives to the standard Ma Bell model. One-piece phones are the latest styling rage and each one seems to have something special going for it that the others don't.

Webcor's stand-up-style Zip phone 737 is one of many new phones that answer the question "What are those two extra push buttons [* and #] for, anyway?" Very low-power microcircuits inside the telephone (they get their juice from the phone company) remember the last number you dialed. If the line is busy or you need to call again, simply press the # button and it automatically redials the entire number for you. The 737 uses the * button as a mute switch. When you press it and hold it down, it cuts off your microphone, so you can confidentially tell an associate in the room what you really think of the guy you're talking to. You also have the option of turning off the electronic bell if you'd prefer not to be disturbed by a ringing telephone.

U. S. Tron's $55 Melody On Hold one-piece phone does just what the name implies--it entertains your caller with the strains of an electronic Für Elise while you answer the doorbell or whatever. Onyx Telecommunications' Tortoise Phone, on the other hand, just sits there looking humpbacked until you pick it up; then the microphone flips open, putting you on the line and revealing its push-button dial.

When shopping for a new phone, try it out at the store if possible. You've grown accustomed to the feel of a home phone, and the new one may not be comfortable, especially to your ear. Crunch it between your head and shoulder for a while, or make a local call to someone who knows your voice and get a candid opinion on how you sound. Microphone elements respond differently to various voices. Also, don't buy a phone for only its looks or gimmicks. It has to be functional as well.

Automatic Dialers

If you're good at forgetting phone numbers and losing your little black book, consider investing in an automatic dialer such as Dictograph's Phone Controller. This compact S120 desktop device plugs in between your phone and the phone jack and takes over for your phone's rotary or tone dial. Use its flat-membrane keyboard to enter a phone number and a red digital readous lets you confirm whether you've pressed the right buttons. If correct, then press dial and the number zips out in either tone, ten or 20 pps (you select which by a switch on the back). In the tone-dial position, the typical seven digits are sent out in a blink. What's more, the Phone Controller remembers 30 phone numbers for one-touch dialing. Each memory stores up to 16 digits, so you can store international direct-dial numbers or extra code numbers for MCI, Sprint or other cut-rate long-distance services. Hooked up to a business line, where you need to dial 9 and wait a second for access to an outside line, you can make the 9 and the pause part of the stored number. If the number is busy, there is not only automatic redial but also a programmable redial that will automatically try the last number once every minute, as often as you tell it to. And there's a clock built in, as well as a call timer, a speaker for conference listening, a secret code to lock out anyone trying to use your phone and a battery backup for the memories if the power fails.

But if 30 memories aren't enough, you'll want to look at the Computer-phone HCT-3000, by Zegna. In one $250 desktop package, you get a push-button telephone (ten pps converted), a green digital display, a 73-number, 14-digit memory, a digital clock that can also show the time in two other time zones, an alarm clock and a stop watch. A little card directory even pops out from under the unit to help you locate the code number for the call you want to make-- unless you can remember all 73.

Answering Machines

While phone answerers have been around for several years, today's machines offer more performance for the money at the inexpensive end of the spectrum and some sophisticated technology at the high end. For light-duty home use, a number of simple singlecassette models are available for less than $100, including the Phonesitter P-50, which rings in at a mere $79.95. Even Ma Bell is getting into the act with a simple model featuring dual cassettes (one for your outgoing message, the other for incoming calls) that leases for less than ten dollars per month.

At the high end are remote answerers that let you play back your messages by telephoning into your own machine. Three of them have very useful high-tech features we like.

Phone-Mate's SAM Remote 960 (about S400) combines a push-button (pulse-converted) auto-redial telephone with the answerer in one intelligent desktop unit. Few things are more aggravating than playing back a series of 30-second blanks on the tape, which most other machines record when the caller hangs up without leaving a message. The 960 records only actual messages left. Plus, the caller can leave any length of message up to five minutes, unlike the fixed-length units, which allow only about 30 seconds before cutting off your long-winded caller. The SAM Remote 960 also digitally displays the number of real messages collected on your machine and comes with a pocket-sized beeper that you hold up to the mouthpiece as soon as you hear your recorded outgoing message. The machine then rewinds and plays your messages for you. Again with the beeper, you can signal your machine to save what's on the tape or rewind to start afresh.

If the SAM Remote 960 is smart, then ITT's Perfect Answer 2 remote answerer ($449.95) is a Phi Beta Kappa. What sets this telephone/answerer combo apart from the rest is that you don't need a beeper for access to your messages from afar--just your voice. You have to match a preset coded sequence of voice and no-voice responses to the five tones it generates. Where your voice is called for, any syllable or two will do. But if you like, you can check out the reactions at crowded pay-phone stalls when you say, "Beep ... beep, beep ..." into the phone.

Panasonic's KX-T1530 (about $500) is another "intelligent" answering machine that is so flexible, via remote control, that you practically never have to touch it. It remembers which incoming messages you've already accessed with your pocket controller and plays back only the latest ones. A memo message button allows your secretary to record a message for you on the incoming tape so you'll hear it the next time you call in. And if you've had a rough week and decide at the last minute to spend the next two in the Bahamas, you can call your machine from the airport and change your outgoing message accordingly.

Cordless Phones

Improved range and voice quality are helping to make cordless telephones a hot item this year. They're a snap to hook up--just plug the base unit into the phone jack and the A.C. outlet and you're on the loose. You make and answer calls just like on a regular telephone. Only now, without a cord to tie you down, you don't have to drop the phone while you check out something across the room or next door. Communication is full duplex--talking and listening simultaneously, as you would expect on any regular phone. And we found the 600-700-foot range of the models we checked out to be adequate around the house or office.

ITT's Cordless Phone System PC-1800 ($299.95) is a versatile affair, since it can be used not only as a cordless phone but also as a wireless intercom system between the hand-held unit and a standard phone plugged into the base unit. The hand-held remote unit offers push-button dialing (pulse converted) and automatic redial.

Electra packs even more technology into its Freedom Phone 4000 cordless wonder ($399.95). The remote handset stores three outgoing phone numbers for instant dialing. And it has a hook button for activating Bell's custom-calling services (Call Waiting, three-way calling, etc.), available in many areas. You can also select push-button tone dialing if your local service is so equipped.

A new variation on the cordless theme is the Litephone office conference telephone, by Controlonics Corporation. The Litephone communicates via infrared-light energy instead of radio waves. The speaker is housed in the base unit, which plugs into the phone jack. A rechargeable wireless hand-held unit contains the push-button (pulse-converted) dial and a sensitive microphone that can pick up voices around a table without the in-a-barrel hollowness of most other speaker phones.

Car Phones

If you are really tied to the telephone yet always on the move, the thought of a car phone has surely crossed your mind. The roadblock in most cities, however, is the limited number of channels available to support a very large demand. Even if you're lucky or influential enough to get a car phone, there will be times during the day when you'll have to wait half an hour for a channel.

That is going to change in dozens of metropolitan areas next year. A new system called cellular mobile telephone will let many more car phones use the same channels than ever before. An extremely sophisticated computer system (no more mobile-telephone operators) will be changing the channels you're talking on as you travel from one ten-square-mile cell to the next--only you'll never know it. In the test system we tried in the Chicago area, sponsored by Illinois Bell and AT&T, voice quality equaled that of a wire-line phone and computerized channel changing went unnoticed. The projected costs are expected to be reasonable: $60 per month for the equipment lease, $25 per month for 120 minutes of air time and 25 cents per minute thereafter.

Other Future Phones

As long as we're talking about the future, we should mention that the telephone lines are starting to carry a lot more than just voices these days. They're carrying information. With a computer terminal, you have access to mammoth data banks containing news, sports, Dow-Jones reports, consumer buying services, airline schedules and much more. Though used primarily for business applications now, these services will become more available to everyday folk with future generations of telephone terminals such as Northern Telecom's $2000 Displayphone.

It's a regular telephone, of course, but it is also a small computer terminal that displays on its own video screen a directory of 81 stored names and phone numbers (with the help of a slide-out typewriter keyboard), keeps your appointment calendar for you and has access to such computerized data banks as CompuServe and The Source. Eventually, you'll use phones like these to buy merchandise, perform banking transactions and send or receive electronic mail.

That little phone jack in the wall is really a sort of gateway--to family, friends, just about anyone anywhere in the world. Now we have all kinds of ways to patch into that system, from a $15 reconditioned rotary-dial telephone to a microprocessor-controlled telecommunications terminal. What's hard to believe is that the technology is only beginning to take off.