Cell phone use with existing home wiring

I have never liked the idea of 2 phone bills. I want to cut the land line, but I have some home theater hardware that must dial out each night. I also want the convenience of the existing phones located throughout the house.

I have been dreaming of a docking station for my cell phone that when docked would drive all the existing wired phones in the house.

Is there such a device, yet?

Err, no, that's just a handset for the phone.

Something like a Dock-N-Talk is more what you're after but that only works with voice calls.

The trouble is the encoding/decoding/re-encoding that's involved with going from a modem to a POTS line, into a docking adapter, over the cell networks and back out to an answering modem just can't be made to work reliably. It's far better to just have the devices not make the analog call to begin with and use a TCP connection instead. Since most cell carriers have data service options, or most homes have some sort of broadband connection that's usually a better route. For those still stuck with using modems there's really not much that can (or should) be done. Even VoIP services can't reliably make it happen. I own a DirecTivo and a know the pain of having to keep a landline for it. C'est la vie.

So look into using your internet connection for the home theatre instead.

-Bill Kearney

Dock-N-Talk looks just like what I am looking for. At ~$140 it can be paid for pretty quickly for the lack of a landline phone bill. Thanks!

You should soon be able to do that with new cell phone that have both cell and Wi-Fi interfaces. As a matter of fact, you should already be able to do this kind of roaming (although not yet automatic to the best of my knowledge) on high-end phones with Wi-Fi interfaces provided by you have a VoIP line in addition to your cell and land lines.

Sorry- Missed your point about DirecTivo and it's modem. I have one, too. Sounds like I am still out of luck.

You should look at

Some DirecTV DVR users have reported success using the following in the DVR Phone Dialing Options for use with Vonage service...

Dial Prefix: 12122773895 (long distance for some, but on Vonage who cares?) Call Waiting Prefix: *99,,#019,,

These settings work with my DSR7000 but won't work with a DSR6000. Both are Phillips DirecTV DVRs.

Remember, it does NOT handle modem calls.

No, that won't usually work for high-speed modem calls. Sure, it's great for voice, but not for modem or fax calls.

If you have a broadband connection you might want to consider VoIP. I have one of my voice lines and my fax line on a Vonage VoIP box and it works quite well as long as there is electrical power and Internet available.

Not all home theater hardware that must dial out will work with Vonage.

.... snipped the ads (spamkiller)

Vonage offers fax service. The two line Phone Adapters can have one port configured for fax service.

I disagree. I make and take faxes over a Vonage line every day. It works just fine.

Actually, the 2nd line is just that -- a second VoIP phone line. It can be used for fax or voice as desired.

True, but the fax line needs to be optioned for fax. People using a voice only Vonage line sometimes have problems with faxes. Voice and fax line conditioning are not the same.

Vonage fax service is an extra cost option for residential users.

Yes, I had AT&T VoIP and I had lots of problems, including FAX. For FAX, you have to configure the service for FAX, which apparently, is not the optimum configuration for voice. Warning, starting rant. That said, I had terrible trouble with VoIP, most or maybe all of it not due to AT&T, but due to Comcast. The cable modem upload speed was all over the place .... as low as 19K and higher than 100K. I cancelled Comcast and now have DSL Pro from SBC and it is a million times better. I have no doubts that VoIP would work very well on this service, however, SBC does not offer "naked DSL" (DSL without a POTS line) in my area yet, although I hear they will be in the future. Sorry for the rant.

When using an ATA with a port configured specifically to support faxes, yes, it can work better. Note you won't get a modem connection through it, certainly not reliably and definitely not at high speed.

I see. I have their business service so mine is already configured for fax on port 2. It's included in the business service (which costs more than residential anyway).

I bought the Vonage service so that I can receive 800 number calls when I'm in Brazil. We go there for at least four months a year. I still have to work (unfortunately) so VoIP is the best option for me.