OH HOW FAR PHONES HAVE COME

There isn't much thought given to the evolution of the phone by many people, and if there is, it is probably because they just bought a new cell phone. But what about the home phone, yes, they still exist. For many of us, it's hard to think back to a time when phones looked like this,

 

Oh the rotary phone....

but trust me they did up until the mid-60s. They also worked on what was called pulse dialing, basically, when you dialed a 3 for example, the phone would interrupt the circuit with three short pulses and you would hear three "clicks" in the ear piece. If you want to read more on the old technology click here.

Most of us remember more modern home phones, but here are two worth mentioning.

The mid-90s brought about change for most home phones. Many of you that lived in Canada, or more so Ontario, will remember the Vista line of home phones, such as this one,

 

The Vista 150.

 

The Vista 150, circa 1994. It included a display and many new features that took the household by storm. Some features worth mentioning are Caller ID, Call Waiting, Hold, the ability to change the ringer and ringer volume and memory keys or more commonly known as speed dial. If you want to relive the past, browse the User Guide.

 

With the introduction of the Internet as we know it today also brought change to the home phone. In 1995, the Vista 350 was released. It not only brought about new features but it also allowed people to connect to the internet through their phone.

The Vista 350.

 

With the Vista 350, people now had the ability to have news delivered right to the display on their phones. They could also search for content and buy products through the menu system. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit clunky and the text formatting wasn't always the best, but it was still cool for it's time.

 

Both of these phones, and most other home phones work on Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling or Touch-Tone. This replaced the pulse tone system but both worked over analog.

 

Another interesting thing to mention is how expensive these phones were. A Vista phone would easily set you back $350 outright, but like mobile phones the service providers would subsidize a portion of the phone if you signed up for a 3 year service contract. 

 

Fast forward to today and more and more households are moving away from these types of phones and are moving to VOIP digital home phones.

 

VP530

 

On the front end, these phones operate much the same as Tone-Tone phones, however they actually work over the internet (VOIP is voice over IP) and are fully digital. As you can see in the picture above, some offer video calling and high definition sound. These phones connect to your home internet and offer battery backup to allow emergency calling during a power outage unlike traditional plain old telephone service (POTS) that uses such low voltage so your phone will still work during a power outage, but note that any feature that requires regular voltage will not work including the fancy ringer (this is why some phones need to be plugged in to electrical).

 

As you can see, home phone systems have come a long way, and have offered many of their features to that little hand held mobile phone that you carry with you daily.