So I can annoy the world with an obnoxious rendition of "Morning Train" eminating from my cell phone when I'm on the go, why haven't any landline phone manufacturers thought to add custom ringtones to the phone in my house?
Not that I want to annoy myself with "Morning Train" at home too, but rather I'd like to map some different, custom ringtones to my caller ID settings. (Yea, I know there are some distinctive ring services out there, but they're still just plain old rings. I'm talking 'bout some polyphonic ringtone action!)
So if it's Mom calling during dinner, the unmistakable custom ring I selected will let me know I should get up from the table. But I'll stay put if it's the custom ring I've set for unknown callers.
And, here are some other spins on the same idea:
(1) I'd like to be able to program a custom ringtone that you hear on your end when I call you!
(2) I'd like to be able to customize the ring sound you hear in your phone's receiver when you're calling me. (This service a hot new thing in Asia (Korea?) in the mobile phone biz.)
So I say more customization! More cryptic interfaces to decipher! More ringtones! ;)
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Simply brilliant idea!
Just had a thought about customization..
What if your phone(cell or landline) could light up with different colors that you have assigned for incoming callers? Wife gets blue, and girlfriend gets red! Couldn't resist.....Sorry.
Other Spins:
Wouldn't work with the way the current telco networkoperates.
Well, yea, I know it wouldn't work with the current telco infrastructure, classicsat. But that's why we're here trying to push the envelope, no?
The current landline telcos are having their lunch eaten by cellular, so perhaps this is a way to evolve and fight back.
Alternately, perhaps this is a value-added set of services that teh various purveyors of VoIP (like Vonage) could offer to continue to cajole us over to making phone calls via the Internet.
You are wrong when stating this wouldn't work with current infrastructure.
It's as easy as create an electronic device which would play a different tone, given the caller number (thus, the only requirement, would be Caller Id).
In fact, it's so simple, i'm going right now to develop it and make myself rich =)
Why keep your landline at all?
Use your computer and you can play any ring tone you want. Download Audio Caller ID from Beiley.com and you can play a wav file, a different wav file for every caller or have a synthesized voice will tell you who is calling.
With new IP phones, doing these customized ring tones (to the caller and callee) are now all possible. My company is working on this feature -- stay tuned to see this arrive in commercial VoIP services in the near future.
Scott
More power to the landline! I'm sick of people wasting cellular technology just to "chat" while wandering around, or even worse, driving. Maybe if the phone at home had as many gadgets, they could wait 15 minutes to blab, and not swerve into my lane while fumbling to answer a call.
Back in the late 1990's, I bought a product that does this. It is basically a caller-ID device that lets you record a 5-second sound/tune/phrase/whatever for incoming calls from designated phone numbers. When you get a call from that number, it plays the associated sound out loud. For privacy, it also offers the option of playing the sound through the phone handset (after you pick up the handset). Then you have to click/press a key or something like that if you want to answer the call. I forget because I haven't used the device for ages, as I've switched over to mobile only. Anyway, the device was definitely a lot of fun to use!
Ringtones are a little confusing, perhaps much less so than everything beeping (what is it? microwave oven, pager, a timer?) mostly because they sound like game toys. I probably confused myself even more by having a talking doorbell. If it sounds like a duck, how do we know it's the phone? VoIP seems just like pirated InternetPhone to me which started out free but somehow turned into some rube goldberg phone with a computer and a modem in it that sends voice over a phone line which it does anyway even with a 100 year old phone. Try two cans and a string sometime. It could lower the cost of VoIP even more. True, but I'm neutral about these ideas because I just think they are funny. For more confusion, get some talking birds and you'll definitely have ringing in your ears.
This already exists. I have a Vtech landline phone that allow you to select different ring tones and graphics for different incoming phone numbers. It also lets you record tunes to be used if you don't want one of the default selections.
How about having the ring-tone itself serve as the caller ID, using the morse code equivalent of the caller's initials: for example, if I'm calling you the phone would go "Beep pause Bee-bip-Bee-bip" (=T C).
I believe people would quickly learn the code.
An advantage is you could tell who is calling without being near the phone.
Telemarketers could all get the code "Bee-bip-Bee-bip pause Bee-bip-Bee-bip" standing for CC = "courtesy call" ... which you could ignore
The phone I mentioned above is like a cell phone in that it allows you to identify a ring with a phone number.s So it will allow you to set up frequent callers with an ID sound, it would use the default for all those that were set up. So telemarketers wouldn't be identified separately.
Sending ringtones to other landlines opens up a huge door for a new generation of phreaking. Free payphone calls in the form of prerecorded voice tones. You could turn any payphone into a nextel for free.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to vote against this one.Now that the mobile phone owning public has descended into a vacuous pit of sadness with the ringtone craze, I think this is another step towards the total stupefaction of the whole of mankind. Have you heard the Crazy Frog ring tone? Jeez! Get a life people!
This is useful in an office environment to differentiate between nearby phones, for example in cubicles or open-plan work areas. Also at home to differentiate between your residential line and your home office line.
Panasonic has been doing this in office phone systems since the KXTD system in the 90s, which had a choice of six ringtones. Their new KXTDA system has thirty different ringtones. You can program one tone for any call to your physical extension, and different tones for each of as many "virtual" extensions as the phone will accommodate (maximum of 24 per telephone, 64 system-wide, and each virtual extension can be mapped to as many physical extensions as needed, up to about 200 telephones).
With a KXTDA system you can also route calls according to caller ID and time of day, and with a KXTVS or KXTVA voicemail system you can let callers "identify themselves" by dialing virtual extensions. All of this is intended for office use and is kinda' expensive for home use, though if you're a telecommuter, you're already saving enough in gas costs to pay for it in a reasonable timeframe. (Panasonic also makes less-expensive PBXs such as the KXTA product line for "normal" home use.)
Any digital PBX, whether Panasonic or others, requires using its own brand of telephone sets for all the features to work; though in Panasonic and a few others you can also use conventional analog phones.
The closest you're going to get to custom ringtones on a conventional analog line would be a phone that maps Caller ID onto a ringtones file.
As for the person who posted "why have a landline at all?" the answer is, so I can hear you clearly rather than having to ask "what did you say?" every third sentence:-)
Well with the technology present in our times we can. My point is, would it be beneficial to everyone? For me it would be unusual and be costly you can just use your computer to do that for you. But for the heck of it sure why not!!! =p
i really think that this is a good idea. i would want our landline to have a feature like this.
they have these
A couple of companies make a box that sits between the home phone and the telephone jack. One such company is HomePhoneTunes, <a href=http://www.homephonetunes.com>HomePhoneTunes. Their device is called the RingBoxx. I think they'll be live in early November 2006.
Already out there for a very long period of time.
*claps as the last ponies cross the finish line*
With two cordless and one hardwired phone on my landline, each with its own ring, things are confusing enough. Add to that the 15 or so separate rings on my cellphone, and it's hard to keep track of what to answer...
Hey this is already possible Bt has a range of landline phones which have numerous polyphonic ringtones built into them, on the one i have there are around 20 different ones. The only problem is that these are the only ringtones you can get so you have to double up the tones for different people. I think a good idea would be for the phones to be able to be either plugged into a pc/mac or whatever and be able to recieve ringtones, or even to have a bluetooth connection also allowing you to use a bluetooth headset whilst your in your garden or something. Normal landline phones should be advancing the same as mobile phones.
they have that
TO: mr2560, Sep 24 2004"...I have a Vtech landline phone that allow you to select different ring tones ..."Could please tell me the model of this Vtech?Thanks