Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!lll-winken!telecom-request From: !carroll@ssc-vax.uucp (Jeff Carroll) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones Message-ID: Date: 29 Mar 91 00:08:22 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics Lines: 36 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 252, Message 3 of 11 In article contact!ndallen@eecs.nwu.edu (Nigel Allen) writes: > Northern Telecom's Harmony telephone set, which Bell Canada and some > other companies rent but do not sell, is a modern electronic telephone > set. The working parts and plastic shell do not weigh very much, and > apparently Northern Telecom's market research with prototypes of the > phone showed that consumers equated low weight with low quality. > And *that's* why there are lead weights in a Harmony telephone. > People who want a heavy telephone will find that manufacturers will > address that demand, but perhaps in an unexpected way. Several of the desk phones of more recent vintage around the office here are AT&T Touchtone desk phones with a carefully engineered (not lead, I don't think; there are health concerns) metallic weight bolted to the inside of the genuine used-to-be-Western-Electric base plate. The phone itself consists merely of a PC card the same size as the keypad and attached to the back of it. Although Boeing is gradually being ISDN-ized, the only ISDN circuits I have seen are at the desks of employees who used to have old-fashioned keysets. These have been replaced by Merlin-style ISDN terminals. The more fortunate of the rest of us (around this particular office, anyway) are using AT&T 610s, which are designed to look like the Japanese programmable speakerphones, down to the simulated speaker baffle in the middle of the handset cradle. Though the 610 *is* programmable, the "speaker baffle" has no slots in it, and no speaker. Don't tell me AT&T is totally without marketing savvy. Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com