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When you define a phone in its historical sense — that is, a device with a handset and a base unit — lots of options are available to the home networker. You can
- Go multiline: Why install a second home-phone line that goes only to one phone? With the proper wiring, you could access that second line from any outlet in the house. Two lines not enough? How about three, four, or more lines?
- Get distinctive: How about giving all the members of the household their own distinctive ringing tones so that they know who the call is for when the phone rings? You can use certain phone company features along with your home-phone network to avoid buying extra phone lines for your household.
- Get conferenced: Although it may sound corporate, consumer-grade conferencing systems make sense if the speakerphones of most phones don't do the trick.
- Get transferred: With a home-phone system, you can transfer calls around the house. Know that your spouse is in the garage? Send the call there.
- Intercom someone: A home-phone system is a great way to get a home-wide intercom system. You can access different rooms by entering different extensions. By tying the system to your front door, you can have visitors leave a message on your phone system when you're not home.
- Answer the door: Use one of the new Doorcom systems to answer the door when you're away. These systems have a doorbell, speakerphone, and microphone — and with a smart home, they can call you where you're vacationing to let you speak with the person at the door through the telephone.
- Get video: With a videophone, you can see who you're talking to. (Depending on the time of day, that may or may not be a good thing.) Some videophones link up with your TV set for even better viewing but still use regular phone lines.
- Go wireless: Cordless base stations now converge with cellular or digital mobile phones. These so-called dual-mode phones let you talk all you want for free (at least no airtime charges) when you're near your base station, but they switch over to cellular or PCS frequencies when you leave home. The phone — and your phone number — goes with you wherever you go. And lately, with the emergence of a lot of Wi-Fi (wireless computer network system) hot spots around the country and in homes, new multimode phones enable you to make free or low-cost calls over the Wi-Fi connection (and the Internet) when they're in range.
- Control your home network: Some of the leading home-automation systems use the telephone as the interface to their system, using voice recognition and tone input to drive things around your house. Imagine calling your house and telling it to turn on the fire, turn down the lights, and let your spouse figure out the rest!
- Get some sleep: You can program your home-telephone system to automatically route inbound calls to an answering machine without ringing any of the phones in the house. Or you can selectively ring only certain phones in certain places.
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