What I Want for Christmas

Remember the “You can hear a pin drop” commercials?

When Sprint was installing their fiber optic network in the ‘90’s, the company ran a series of ads where engineers in one city would drop a pin on a table, and another engineer in a different city would exclaim “Really?  That was a pin?”  The point was how Sprint’s network gave unusual clarity of sound.  That was back when everybody used landlines.

Nowadays an increasing number of people do not have landlines, only cell phones.  Now, instead of commenting on how clearly you can hear what is happening on the other end of the line, a phone conversation is more likely to have shouted comments like “What?  Can you say that again?  Wait a second, you’re breaking up.”

I blame a lot of that on the device design.  The old desk phones were designed for clarity of transmission and durability.  You could drop them on the floor (repeatedly) and the sound quality was still good.  The design of a cell phone is optimized for size and weight.  The antenna, microphone, and speaker are all miniaturized.  Sound quality is a secondary consideration.

Still, even though the sound quality is not good, the number of households with cell phones only is increasing.  At some point in the future the phone companies will begin to drop landline service as unprofitably to maintain.

I have an idea of how to combine the quality of a landline with the convenience of a cell phone.  What I envision is a docking station for your phone that will have three functions: a) recharge the cell, b) give the cell better reception through a larger antenna, and c) have a handset with a better speaker and microphone.  This is not much different than my current cordless phones, which is what gave me the idea.

Developing this device should not be much of an extension on current Bluetooth technology.  On the other hand, I don’t know anything about Bluetooth technology, or phone technology in general, which is why I’m not trying to find investors to develop this on my own.

So I’m just throwing the idea out there, and maybe in a year or two I’ll find one of these gizmos under my tree at Christmas.

iPhone compatible, please.