Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Portable Office Phones Message-ID: <4536@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 1 Mar 90 03:45:08 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 42 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 133, Message 10 of 10 Leonard P Levine writes: > ATT is currently marketing a portable office phone that connects with > their Merlin system. Does anyone know if there are ANY security > features available with that phone? I'm so glad someone else opened this worm can. The only difference between the Merlin phone and their ordinary cordless is the signaling required to access the Merlin features and the displays to show status. There is no "scrambling". Thoughts occur. The TV ads talk about the "cords that bind and hold your business back." That's silly. How many office situations are you aware of that require a person talking on the phone to dance around the office during the conversation? Even those businesses with PBXs that can effectively use an ordinary cordless phone don't. I'm going to give that phone a couple of months to catch on. Remember, it won't be the riffraff who get one of those, but the boss -- the big executive. The conversations on those cordless phones should be the juciest ones being made on the company's phone system. Now that the courts have so ruled, I can cruise the industrial parks of Santa Clara and Sunnyvale with the old ICOM and see what great gossip I can pick up with impunity. Who knows, maybe the next big Silicon Valley bombshell will be revealed first on this group thanks to the popularity of the Merlin cordless :-) John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: Even though cordless phones are not treated as cellular phones where the prohibition against listening is concerned, under FCC regulations you still do not have the lawful right to repeat what you have heard, or acknowledge that you heard anything. Rules of the FCC pertaining to overhearing radio transmissions not intended for yourself still apply, including the part about not using what you have heard for your personal gain. PT]