Date: 10 March 1983 15:42 mst From: Lippard.DSOP (James J. Lippard) Subject: Miscellaneous Digest V2 #13 Reply-To: misc To: (Miscellaneous Mailing List) Miscellaneous Digest Volume 2 : Issue 13 Today's topics: Cordless Phones --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 March 1983 15:40 mst From: Lippard.DSOP (James J. Lippard) Subject: From TELECOM Digest Date: 27 Feb 1983 1733-PST Sender: GEOFF at SRI-CSL Subject: Fun with Cordless Phones & California vacuum cleaners. From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow Reply-To: Geoff at SRI-CSL n083 1726 11 Feb 83 BC-CORDLESS 2takes (Art en route to picture clients) By PETER KERR c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - As the telephone industry in the United States changes and more people buy their own phones, cordless models, which allow users to wander as they speak, are capturing the fancy of a growing number of Americans. As many as 2.4 million sets may be sold in 1983, according to an industry source. Consumers, distributors and manufacturers tell tales of both electronic wizardry and electronic woe. Lawyers describe the deals they arranged while basking on the beach. Mothers recount the calls they answer while feeding their babies. However, technology buffs repeat rumors about cordless telephone raiders - criminals who are said to prowl suburban roads in search of dial tones that enable them to place long-distance calls. Some owners complain of interference from household appliances and the cordless phones of neighbors. In one case last year, according to the GTE Corp., a California vacuum cleaner dialed a nearby cordless telephone by generating electrical impulses through the house wiring. This caused chagrin in the offices of the local phone company, a GTE subsidiary, and surprise in the home of the physician who owned the two appliances. ''There were some problems that had to be worked out, but they are being solved,'' said Robert L. Petkun, vice president in charge of marketing for Phone-Mate Inc. of Torrance, Calif., one of several dozen companies that distribute cordless phones. ''Business now is somewhere between fabulous and amazing.'' The cordless telephone's attraction, those who deal in them say, is that owners need not miss a call while they are in the garden, at poolside or even in the bathtub. The product is also a boon to invalids in wheelchairs and to the elderly who cannot rush to a ringing phone. Petkun said that on the basis of a mail survey of 40,000 households made by Industrial Market Research, a Chicago concern, sales of cordless phones grew from 50,000 in 1980 to slightly more than a million in 1982, with 700,000 sold in the last three months of the year. Petkun predicted that 2.4 million units would be sold in 1983. Spokesman for other companies dealing in telephone equipment, while offering different sales figures - some higher, some lower - agreed that the product had experienced dramatic growth in the last two years and foresaw a potential market of more than 20 million households, second only to conventional phones. Seventy-nine million American households have phones. ''The cordless phones are virtually a sellout in PhoneCenters across the country,'' said Charles Wright, a spokesman for American Bell, the new subsidiary of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., which operates 461 retail telephone stores that offer three cordless models. 'This year cordless phones are taking off,'' said Peggy Odenbach, telephone editor of Mart Magazine, a consumer electronics publication. ''With the deregulation of the telephone industry, people see they can buy their own phones, and cordless phones are catching their eyes.'' Cordless telephones come in two parts, a base station and a handset, that communicate byradio waves. The base station, which is attached to the regular telephone circuit by a jack, runs on household current. A rechargeable battery operates the handset, which, except for those with antennas, looks like a regular telephone receiver and can be clipped on or, in smaller models, slipped into a pocket. The handset can receive and place telephone calls at ranges of 50 to 700 feet (700 feet is the maximum under Federal Communications Commission regulations) depending on the model. Most are manufactured abroad and they generally range in price from $100 to $400. Extra handsets may be added. ''I sit on a gorgeous beach and look at the Pacific Ocean while I do business,'' said Robert Rifkind, a Los Angeles lawyer whose base station is plugged into his seaside home. In Washington, Walter Sommers, proprietor of the Fourways Restaurant, a converted four-story 1890s mansion, had contemplated installing 40 jacks so that patrons could have telephone service at their tables. ''We bought two cordless telephone units instead,'' he said. ''They were less expensive and, it seemed, more luxurious.'' In Manhattan, Victoria Horstmann, a free-lance writer, was worried about her infant son's habit of rummaging through closets and drawers while she was on the phone. A cordless phone relieved her fears that she might lose track of the child or miss an editor's call. ''There's only one problem,'' Mrs. Horstmann said. ''Sometimes the phone will ring and nobody's on the line.'' Her complaint underlines the cordless-phone industry's problem. Someone in an apartment near Mrs. Horstmann may also have a cordless phone operating on the same frequency. Mrs. Horstmann could probably exchange her unit for one that operates on a slightly different frequency or channel. But the FCC allows only five channels for cordless phones, which means that any two neighbors have a 1-in-5 chance of interfering with each other. If large numbers of units are sold to people in apartment houses or closely situated private homes, owners of cordless phones may find themselves picking up neighbors' rings or conversations more and more. The Electronic Industries Association, a trade group, has asked the FCC for at least 25 channels to alleviate the problem, but the agency is not expected to grant act until late this year at the earliest. Channels are not the only difficulty. In theory, at least, it is possible to drive through a neighborhood with a handset until a dial tone is heard and make long-distance calls that would be billed to the cordless phone's owner. While talk of such ''telephone raiders'' is heard among the electronically sophisticated, their existence is difficult to substantiate. ''Such thievery may have happened in the past, but I don't think it is happening now,'' said Sydney Bradfield, an electronics engineer with the FCC's Office of Science and Technology. Noting that some newer models employ coded signals to prevent such abuse, he added: ''The FCC feels that the technology has really increased the security of the products. It is not a major problem.'' A problem does arise when certain motorized household appliances are plugged into the same electrical system as a cordless phone, affecting it by electromagnetic impulses. In a case last year, the General Telephone Co. of California discovered that ''bizarre numbers'' were being dialed every Thursday morning from the home of a physician in Banning, Calif. According to Tom Mattausch, a spokesman for GTE, the house, where an early model of the cordless telephone was in use, was vacuum-cleaned then. ''The vacuum cleaner never succeeded in placing a phone call,'' Mattausch said, ''but it sure made them curious at the central office.'' nyt-02-11-83 2038est *************** -------------------- End of Miscellaneous Digest ***************************