<p>OK so I bought a new home phone “system.” It is amazing. </p>
<p>First, some background. I find the telephone to be rather intrusive and annoying! And we have a house that is a little spread out, making for alot of phones. We are listed on the do not call list for our state and for the federal program. We have that thing on our line that blocks call that do not show their number. We used to have an unlisted number, but listed it back when the kids were old enough to start to get calls from friends. (That was back in the dark ages, where kids in elementary or middle school did not have cell phones.) But with the no call lists, and now kids with cell phones we had phone “peace” …until recently. </p>
<p>As of late 2008, were getting calls. We got calls from current business we do or have done business with (legal) for new or different products that we do not have any interest in. We got calls from affiliated business, charities, etc etc that can sort of call legally, and repeat calls even when we asked them not to, and even when we tried to change our privacy setting with the organization. And now, there was a whole new breed of sleazy telemarketers that “show” a caller ID number that is NOT THEIR NUMBER. They spam a number, often one that is not in service. We were somehow on a list of about 15 numbers that called many times a week, over and over. Doesn’t matter if you tell them not to. If you call back the number in caller ID you get a message that the call cannot be connected or the number is not in service. They use automatic dialers, and many times one answers the phone and no one is there. </p>
<p>My approach was to keep a list of the most annoying numbers and just not answer; but it would ring and ring 20-25 times if you did not use an answering machine. And the more we didn’t answer or let it go to a machine, the more often the calls. If they got the machine, they often left no answer and just kept calling. Our number must have gotten onto some sort of list. We were also getting a number of calls from dept consolidation folks, etc and we have little to no debt, a mortgage that is not in trouble, and little to know credit card balances.</p>
<p>So, this Christmas I thought about asking for new phones. We are rather frugal. The phone in our family room was a Uniden, one of the first cordless phones with a rather long “distance” connection. We could walk anywhere in the house with it, walk down a long drive and out in our yard, The thing was 20-22 years old. No caller ID (we bought one of those boxes to sit next to it.) But it worked great, and the battery only needed replacing every 8-10 years. The phone in the guest room was also a cordless. It was much newer model, only 18 years old :). The kids were hard on phones, and the inexpensive cordless models broke, or got lost!!! So we just stopped putting phones in their rooms. But sometimes the call was for them… We had a collection of old, dusty, yellowing, ugly phones. We had an old corded phone in our bedroom and the kitcheh, but they worked, so I did not want to replace them. Until now.</p>
<p>I did not end up asking for a new phone for Christmas, but had some Christmas money from the in-laws to spend. So I researched and purchased a Panasonic system. It is WONDERFUL. You have one base with a cordless phone. It needs an electric plug and a phone line. Then you can add up to 5 phone handsets with their own small charger base. The charger bases need an electric plug AND NO PHONE LINE. They all run off the main base. We can situate the base in the middle of the house, and all the handsets have a wonderful and clear signal all over the house. And the yard. And the garage and driveway. You input a phonebook of numbers into one handset, and they show in all the handsets. You can call using the phonebook or the keypad on any phone. And if you have caller ID, it can be set to TALK. It announces the call. From each handset. So if you are cooking or clearning and not near a phone, you can hear who is calling. No waiting to listen to the answering machine, or running to look at caller ID. If you have the number listed in the handset phonebook, it announces the listing. If it is not in your phonebook, it announces it based on the caller ID info.</p>
<p>And the most amazing thing is that you can add up to 20 calls to the call block system in the phone. And if one of those callers places a call, it rings ONCE, and disconnects the line. The caller hears one ring and then a constant busy signal!!! In the 10 days we have had it, it seems many of those repeated calls have now taken us off their list! And even if they keep calling, they just ring once. Each handset shows a list of recent calls. With one or two buttons, you can add a call to the phone book or to the block list. We have caller ID and call block on our line, but the call block can only be used to block local calls. This new phone system blocks any call that shows a caller ID number and is on the block list(and our phone line blocks anyone who does not.)</p>
<p>Each handset shows a number to identify it (1-6). You can intercom from one handset to another. You can answer a call, put it on hold, and ring D1 or D2 and ask them to pick up. Or you can just intercom them that dinner is ready!</p>
<p>For the technicaly challanged, this is the most simple phone system to set up and start using, And it does have a digital answering machine, if you use one. It uses a newer tech nology/frequency (DECT 6) that does not interfere with baby monitors, wireless internet, etc. We plugged it into a DSL filter and into our phone jack and that was that</p>
<p>And for your kids who don’t want a phone ringing in their room and waking them up when they sleep in, each handset can have a night setting activated, and you set the time that it won’t ring at all. And each person can set their own ring tone. There are 6 to choose from.</p>
<p>OK, so maybe having phones for so long kept me out of the loop. And maybe you all know about these amazing new phones. But for those of you who do not…check it out. This was the best present I have purchased for myself in years. </p>
<p>I really had a good laugh looking at the box of old phone we pitched after putting out the new ones. They looked even older and more dated then I realized. (We did keep an old corded phone for when the power goes out.) I hope this system lasts another 20 years!</p>