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Wireless

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Jan 19th 2005 11:04am





Replacing Office Phones With Mobile Phones?

from the could-be-pricey dept

While there have been plenty of stories about home users ditching landlines for mobile phones, and enough stories about offices switching to VoIP, here's one of the first stories that suggests some employees prefer to use their mobile phones rather than their office landlines. While I do know a few people for whom this is true, no one had really mentioned it as a trend (in fact, the article linked here only mentions it in passing -- rather than as the main point of the article). While many mobile phone plans include large buckets of minutes, using a mobile phone exclusively as an office phone could certainly end up costing quite a bit of airtime for users who are on the phone all day. If this really is true, then it could bode well for even those crippled efforts at making a combined VoIP-cellular phone that does VoIP in the office (and only in the office) and cellular elsewhere. Of course, it would limit the choices of what phones to buy -- and since the new trend in selling to the enterprise is selling up through the consumer, it still may be a difficult sell. A lot of people buy their own mobile phones and have their employers reimburse, rather than taking a corporate-issued phone. Requiring a special phone would make that more difficult.

4 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Paul J, Jan 19th, 2005 @ 11:36am

    Actually....

    I have been doing just this thing for several years. It benefits both me and those business contacts who need to reach me.
    For me it means that when I work from home I don't have to call into a remote PBX and update a voicemail message saying I will be out of the office contact me at X number. Ditto if I am traveling. For contatcs it means they can reach me when they need to.

    Luckily I don't actually have to use a phone too much since email and IM accomplished most of my communication needs. Therefore business needs don't really even impact my included minutes.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Chris, Jan 19th, 2005 @ 12:24pm

    Re: Actually....

    My experience is similar to Paul's. It was made practical when I joined on as a pilot member to one of the local networks and received unlimited minutes for a relatively low flat fee - a plan which I continue to renew. And while a lower usage plan will probably still beat mine in price, I often forget that other people have to keep track of minutes which is a headache I enjoy not having.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    thecaptain, Jan 19th, 2005 @ 12:56pm

    we're doing this at home

    We got rid of our landline and got 2 cellphones and we're saving 70 bucks a month without missing anything.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    Rick, Jul 7th, 2005 @ 8:54am

    Going Mobile Only

    According to research done by Lippis Enterprises, desktop phone usage is down more than 15% and mobile usage is on the rise 28% CAGR. Ford cut the cord on more than 8,000 desk phones to go with mobiles only, see this story from Network World http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2005/012405ford.html

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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