A Vision of Next Generation Phone Systems

By Wayne Caswell
HomeRF Marketing Manager, Siemens Cordless Products Division

After 30 years at IBM and running a home systems consulting practice, Wayne joined Siemens to help develop home networking strategies and apply cordless telephone technology to HomeRF, thus enabling the integration of data and voice applications.  Wayne is a home networking visionary, frequent speaker, and author with a monthly column in HomeToys.com.  He serves as the Communications Chairman for the HomeRF Working Group.

There are three trends effecting phone systems: (1) mobility, (2) the move from one phone number per location to one number per person, (3) the delivery of voice services over more efficient digital broadband networks, and (4) the continued evolution of cordless.  These four trends are converging on the Internet broadband home at an increasingly fast rate.

Combine these trends and you may come to this vision of a next generation home phone system.

A single service provider offers more value and new capabilities with their bundle of integrated services as described above.  Family members have their own personal phone number and personalized handset.  That one number can now reach them at home, in the office, in the car, at the mall, or at Grandma’s house in San Antonio, assuming that they haven’t turned off their phone.

Come home and plug your mobile phone into a charging unit, which tells the service provider where you are and that calls to your personal number can now be directed home over very efficient broadband networks instead of relying on the more expensive airwaves.  Each charging unit speaks HomeRF, as does the residential gateway that sits between your wireless home network and the services you want.

Throughout the house, a variety of phones from different manufacturers now interoperate and can all be used to answer incoming calls, make outgoing calls, and call room-to-room, as well as run PC and Internet applications.  They may each get a distinctive ring based on caller ID so you know if the call is for you.  A messaging service that’s available from home or anywhere else combines voice-mail, e-mail, faxes, and paging messages.

Your HomeRF wireless network becomes an integral part of this next generation phone system and is ready for video telephony and other new and demanding applications.  The HomeRF products you buy today are well matched to broadband data applications at 1.6 Mbps, and the new HomeRF 2.0 products that support video and data networking with speeds up to 10 Mbps will work seamlessly with current products.  More importantly, you, your service provider, and the device manufacturers can all feel secure in knowing that next generation HomeRF 3.0 products expected in 2002 with speeds of 20 Mbps or more will continue that smooth upgrade path.

While I’m interested in learning more about the other visions of the next generation home phone system, including the use of only mobile phones or IP phones; each has significant technical obstacles to overcome.  If I were a betting man, I’d bet on HomeRF.  I have.