AT&T Offers Internet Phones Combining Digital VoIP and Landline Telecommunications Services

AT&T and the Internet Phone Revolution

This new phone is one of AT&T’s offerings coming out of its new product development initiative, Project Jazz, which is aimed at designing more appealing landline phones by integrating wireless features into the technology.  The company also recently launched AT&T Yahoo Go Mobile to add more punch to their cellular phone services.

Go Mobile allows cellular customers to use their cell phones to browse the Web, access e-mail, and chat online over AT&T’s DSL Internet, which is delivered over a landline. Customers can also receive sports scores, news and financial updates on their phones. This new service is currently available only on select models, such as the Nokia 6682, but will soon come standard on all new AT&T cellular phones.

Cingular and AT&T are also working together on a dual-mode cordless phone that operates on Cingular’s wireless network when customers are out of the house and on a home network when they are in. This new innovation will cut costs for customers by allowing them to make free, Internet calls over AT&T’s DSL Internet network without losing any of the portability and functionality of a cell phone.

Enhancing Landline Phones With Wireless, Digital Technology

All of these changes come from AT&T’s continued commitment to integrating the latest wireless and digital innovations into current service offerings.  With the recent boom in portable, wireless devices such as portable music players, cellular phones and Bluetooth-enabled PDAs, customers are demanding increased integration of high speed Internet services with all telecommunications offerings.  

You may be asking yourself, “but why stay on a landline at all?” The answer is a simple one; although VoIP has many advantages, the service also has limitations that are easily overcome by integrating digital features into an existing landline device. For example, VoIP phones are dependent on a working Internet connection. If your Internet goes down and you exclusively use VoIP phones, your communications with the outside world have been cut. With landline hybrid phones, you will be able to use the Internet to make VoIP calls most of the time, but can make calls over your landline connection if the Internet goes down.

Internet phones have also come under fire for introducing problems to current emergency services, such as 9-1-1.  If a 9-1-1 caller is not able to identify his or her location to emergency personnel, tracking the caller’s location becomes problematic because there is no real way of associating a caller’s IP address with a physical location. Even more troubling, some VoIP services do not recognize 9-1-1 as an emergency number at all. By providing a hybrid landline and digital phone, AT&T gets around the problems associated with VoIP while offering the exciting online features that customers demand.

The Best of AT&T Internet, Wireless and Landline Phones

Phone companies, such as AT&T, are hoping to continue to serve existing customers and attract new ones by providing new phones that remain anchored at home, and maintain all the advantages of a landline while offering newer digital features. The eventual goal is to develop a new type of phone that combines wireless, landline, and broadband Internet access to give customers the best of all three worlds.