Imagine being able to take and make calls, receive e-mails, IMs, and SMS, and at the same time manage web-enabled applications like hosted CRM and workforce management in a convenient, go-anywhere, user-friendly wireless appliance.

Imagine no more being tangled up in cords, or fiddling with multiple (and expensive) gadgets.

Imagine having at last a truly usable phone for home workers, including contact center agents and supervisors.

The hard reality is that when you are working from home you do get interrupted, like for deliveries, plumbers, other contractors, family responsibilities: which beats productivity and cost-wise having to leave early/arrive late to handle when working in a traditional office. Such a device would enable you to stay in touch and keep on the go while signing documents, giving instructions, etc.

The reality of having such a tool may be closer than you may think: in the form of an IP-enabled iPhone that acts like a mutant cordless handset.

Give the credit and kudos to Group Publisher Rich Tehrani who revealed in his blog just before ITEXPO West how the iPhone can become the ultimate (and universal) handset via IP by using the extra wire connected to the headphone jack.

This is roughly similar in concept to the Hutchison Telecom Telepoint hybrid cordless/microcellular units marketed in the UK in the early 1990s which if you were in range of one of these base stations you could make calls. I used to live and work near Manchester, England where this was launched and saw these 'points' but I never witnessed anyone using them. You could also use the devices at home as cordless sets.

What I'd like to see is someone to bring back the Tandy TRS80-T100--the first truly functional portable computer: the ultimate tablet--with 21st centry functionality.

The T100 combined word processing, BASIC, a small but readable screen, a built-in modem, and a a rugged keyboard: features that made it the journalist's best friend. You could, using an acoustic coupler, zap files over a pay phone. I used the clamshell model, the T200, when I wrote for the Manchester (N.H.) Union-Leader over 20 years ago, and it far beat most laptops I've relied on since.

I and other journalists, programmers, and other keyboard-intensive users have been reluctant to switch over to BlackBerries, etc. because the keys and pads are too small and unforgiving for us two-fingered demons, and the screens are way too small. The tablets that have come on the market in recent years lacked usability.

What are firms like Apple, and they and other practical geniuses who can box and package proven technologies waiting for?

Here's something you don't think about very often.

When connecting to the public telephone network in the U.S., many VoIP and wireless telephone companies are essentially "riding for free," since they are not transmitting sufficient identification information to allow the traditional carriers to charge them. Apparently, this is particularly hard on rural telephone companies, which make up to 29 percent of their revenue from inter-carrier compensation (carrying traffic for another company).

One such rural provider disdains the process. Ramond Henagan, General Manager of Missouri's Rock Port Telephone, stated that some VoIP providers have refused to pay access fees by saying the FCC has "given them permission to use the networks for free because they're IP," Henagan said. "You and I both know these are regular voice calls, people talking to people. Because these companies have sprinkled IP fairy dust on them, they think they get a free ride."

You don't read the phrase "IP fairy dust" every day, do you?

Read the full piece at http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/04/23/3405677.htm.

TES

Twice in my life have I become teary over the death of people whom I had never met. The first was over George Harrison, as I was a fan of the "Quiet Beatle." The second time was yesterday, upon hearing of the death of Arthur C. Clarke.

It was in eighth grade...Ms. Wheeler's English class...that I was obliged to read the book "2001: A Space Odyssey." Most of my classmates approached it with dread. It had a boring cover. It had lots of science terms on the synopsis. But I was a good student, and it had been assigned, so I read it.

It began a love affair with science fiction that has lasted 26 years. Though I have branched far and wide in science fiction, from the classics -- Bradbury, Heinlen, Asimov -- to the admittedly somewhat schlocky, I held Clarke nearest and dearest to my heart. There has seldom been written a more prophetic science fiction novel than "Childhood's End" (in which Clarke predicted communication via fax and e-mail...in 1953) or a more perfect sci-fi book than "Rendezvous With Rama." My personal favorite, however, remains "The City And The Stars," a novel that takes place a billion years into Earth's future and theorizes what may come of both human technology and human social interaction.

But we have a lot more to thank Clarke for than his science fiction, as worthy a contribution as it was. It was Clarke, who was also a physicist and a mathematician, who popularized the idea via a 1945 essay entitled "Extra Terrestrial Relays" in Wireless World magazine that satellites in geostationary orbit (an orbit that allows the satellite to remain above a specific point on earth at all times) would be perfect for carrying telecommunications traffic. To this day, the orbit that telecom satellites travel in, geostationary orbit, is also known as the "Clarke orbit."

Clarke never patented the idea of the telecommunications satellite, primarily because his lawyer thought the idea was so outlandish...communication relayed to space and back to earth again...that the lawyer felt it would have been a waste of time. Clarke later recounted the error in an essay entitled, "A Short Pre-History of Comsats, Or: How I Lost a Billion Dollars in My Spare Time."

Rest in peace, Sir Arthur Clarke. I, for one, will go home today and drag out my old copies of your books and be inspired.

TES

Loved this piece written by MSNBC's Tech Editor Bob Sullivan about the efforts American wireless companies have expended locking their customers into "cell phone jail." Why, in a country that is ostensibly proud to be a free market economy, do we put up with this?

There's some interesting information in the article about the rather sleazy practices the wireless companies have developed to keep customers locked up, which companies are better than others, and how you can get around some of those practices. (Did you know you don't HAVE to put up with a cell phone that is locked to only one carrier? I didn't.)

TES

Too many "V" words to keep track of...

In any case, here's an interesting case presented by TechDirt that Vonage was the true innovator, and Verizon essentially came late to the game and sued Verizon out of a bad case of sour grapes:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20071025/184419.shtml

TES

Spotted this on the feeds today, and it makes me wonder...are Led Zeppelin fans REALLY likely to download custom ring tones and wallpapers?

I had rather imagined that those who download stuff like that are more in the market for boy bands and pop music. Do Baby Boomers really go in for all the cell phone personalization business?

Maybe they do. I imagine Verizon wouldn't pursue it if they didn't think it was viable.

OK...I feel hopelessly un-hip now.

TES

If you're an adult who feels disadvantaged over the fact that teenagers know more than you about technology, here's a story to make you feel over-the-hill.

It turns out, teenagers are now downloading a ring tone for their phones for incoming calls and text messages that is pitched too high for most adults to hear. If you've ever been near one of those devices that people install in their gardens to keeps critters from digging, you'll know that most adults over 30 cannot perceive the sound due to age-related hearing degradation, but most young people in their teens and early to mid 20s can hear acutely, even painfully. Some shopping malls today even project the sound in places they don't want teen mall rats to congregate.

It seems the young people have found a way to use the sound to their advantage to hear when text messages come in during class.

Touche.

TES

Here's a link to today's blog from Caroline Mayer from the Washington Post. Her issue is the continuation of the appalling customer service from Verizon. Since Verizon is one of my pet-peeve bad customer service organizations, I thought I would share:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thecheckout/2006/05/verizons_big_disconnect.html#comments

The comments posted to the blog, most of them by people who have run into the same problems (or worse) point to the fact that this company has GOT to clean up its customer service. What's the use of having a first-class network when you abuse your customers?

TES

If you own a cell phone, each time you pay your bill, you're paying a three percent tax for the war effort. Sounds like a topic that could get political? It's not...because the war you're paying to support is the Spanish American War, which happened in 1898.

http://www.newsnet5.com/money/6180216/detail.html

Talk about elderly war veterans.

Now, what I want to know is, what are we doing for those old boys laid up after the Battle of Bunker Hill? They deserve a little support, too.

TES

There are several things I hope for before I get on an airplane. One, that I won't be seated between two arm-rest hogs. I also hope for basic hygiene from my seat companions, which includes restraint from engaging in any bodily function that causes smells or extraordinary noises. Third, I usually hope to avoid being seated next to an infant who has just discovered the delights of using his or her lungs and vocal chords to maximum capacity; or a small child with an upset tummy, a bad case of motion sickness and uncanny projectile aim.

Until now, I've never had to worry about taking a six-hour flight stuck next to someone using a mobile phone to shout at his broker or recount his groin hernia surgery in minute detail to his cousin in Oklahoma.

Looks like I'll soon need to add another bullet point to my pre-flight wish list:

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-calling-from-troposphere-abi-research-examines-coming-market-/2005/nov/1206297.htm

TES