Why invest in an expensive PBX phone system when everything you need can be found in phones that simply plug right into your existing telephone jacks?

Most business telephone systems require all the phones in an office to be connected, individually, to a central control box or key service unit (KSU). The disadvantage is that the KSU and unique wiring require professional installation and programming, raising the cost and complexity of the system.

But, “non-KSU” phone systems do not require a central cabinet. Instead, each phone contains the circuitry necessary for features such as conferencing, intercom, and transfer. Installation is as easy as plugging in the phones.

Overview: Simple to install and use, this affordable multi-line speakerphone features Caller ID/Call Waiting when you subscribe to these services from your local telephone service provider. It also offers a convenient speakerphone, headset jack, 32-number speed-dial, and 3-way conferencing.

As your business expands, you can add additional telephones from within this AT&T series which can be networked into a system of up to 16 phones. Additional features include all-station paging, intercom, hold, call transfers between stations, four lighted line indicators, 16 intercom one-touch keys, two data ports, Centrex compatibility, and power failure protection.

The setup: For this review, we purchased one new ATT 1070 speakerphone (as well as an ATT 1080, which was necessary for testing features only available when using 2 or more phones of this phone system series). We connected each phone’s first two lines together, in a star topology, to distribute both lines of a two-line SIP adapter by Sipura using G.711u audio compression to our Asterisk 1.4 voice server.

As you can see by the picture on the right (click to zoom), all of the external telephone lines in your home or office must be wired to all phones. It is actually very common for homes and small offices to already have this wiring plan, so these new phones simply plug in where the old phones were once connected! Optionally, Line 4 can be shared by all phones, or unique as a “private line” exclusive to one phone, or a group of phones that might need a dedicated telephone number for external callers to reach them directly.

First thoughts: Unlike recent AT&T 4-line phones that looked more like a cheap, plastic, consumer-grade, home telephone trying to survive the daily abuse of an office environment, the telephones in this new series of “non-KSU” intercom phones (ATT 1040, ATT 1070, and ATT 1080) look and feel like professional business phones. It’s two-tone silver brushed metal and hard black plastic design fondly references back to the popular AT&T Merlin® KSU phone system of several decades ago.

The included manuals are outstanding! You receive a Quick Setup Guide, a Users Guide, and an Installation Guide. But these aren’t some tiny little pamphlet! Each of these books are about 50-150 pages, every page written in plain English, covering every single feature in a very clear and concise way to make sure you get your money’s worth out of everything this phone has to offer. (I have never been more impressed by documentation!) I found no typographical errors or confusing descriptions. The manuals really add some confidence to AT&T and the future of this new phone series!

The good: The four-way directional button and center “Enter” button become your primary tool to quickly and easily select features without the need to remember codes or special key sequences. In fact, all too often, these “non-KSU” phones will have buttons with two or more functions — not this new AT&T series! The buttons on the phone are self-explanatory and only serve the one function for which they are labeled. All related feature options appear on the blue backlit LCD screen when you are in a particular mode that offers more options. For example, when you lift the handset and press the Intercom button, the top half of the screen prompts “Intercom No.?” while the bottom half of the screen presents you to optionally “Page” a single extension (instead of simply ringing it) or to “Page All” and broadcast your announcement on all the phones in your home or office simultaneously.

Another improvement, which is why I suspect these phones aren’t backwards compatible with earlier AT&T “non-KSU” phones other than the 1000-series: the Intercom audio is digital, crystal clear. No longer will your Intercom calls be subjected to interference from a nearby radio station transmitter or other nuisance! With two phones side-by-side, you can detect a slight millisecond or so delay as an Intercom page is encoded on your phone to be then decoded on the destination phone. The sound quality is truly impressive and worthwhile. If you are currently experiencing any issues with your Intercom on older non-KSU phones, you might want to give a pair of these a test run.

The bad: If you transfer a call from one phone to the next, the caller hears nothing. No music-on-hold, no tones — nothing but silence. If they had offered an option to play a soft double-beep tone to the caller every couple of seconds, that would have been a worthwhile improvement over dead-air. (However, the ATT 1080 does play a “Please hold” recorded announcement every few seconds when a caller is transferring to an extension by way of the built-in auto attendent included on that ATT 1080 phone. But even that phone leaves the caller with dead air if they are put on hold or transferred by a human instead.)

UPDATE: We recommend adding the On Hold Plus Music On Hold 6500 system to play music-on-hold to your callers, which will solve the biggest problem in this otherwise perfect phone system.

One slight disappointment was with regards to the telephone recognizing when a caller on-hold had disconnected. I tried everything in my “toolkit” of test equipment, but it seems these phones just don’t recognize (or don’t care) when a caller that you’ve placed on-hold chooses to hang up before you return to the call. The system will continue to keep that line blinking on-hold until you retrieve it — often to the frustration of loud dialtone in your ear. Not a deal-breaker, just annoying.

It also would have been nice if the Hold button had a red-colored key for quick access. I realize its a minor complaint, but when you take a lot of calls it helps to have that button easy to find. I would suggest the purchase of a red permanent marker so you could do it yourself — you’ll thank me later!

The ugly: When integrated with an ATT 1080 with the “SYS EXT” voice messaging feature enabled, trying to figure out how to listen to your messages on any phone except the ATT 1080 is a huge headache! For a phone system that is so “menu-driven” by that directional navigation and “enter” button arrangement near the LCD screen, it is irritating to have to dig out a reference card to use this ATT 1070 phone to listen to your messages in the mailbox reserved exclusively for your extension but actually recorded and stored on the ATT 1080 voicemail/answering system. It just seems to me this could have been better thought out!

My guess is that AT&T would probably “recommend” that you purchase an ATT 1080 phone for every person who needs a voicemail/answering system, instead of using one ATT 1080 to serve voicemail for multiple ATT 1070 phone users as their advertising suggests.

Conclusion: Overall, this is the best four-line telephone AT&T has ever made! If you’ve ever experienced issues with any of the earlier four-line models, such as the ATT984, ATT974, ATT964, ATT955, ATT945, or ATT944. The 1040, 1070, and 1080 have been redesigned from the ground-up and the attention to quality really shows!! All advertised features worked beautifully, each button pressed produced the expected result — press the Transfer button while on a call, the LCD prompts “Transfer line to ?”. By keeping one function per button, and also utilizing the navigation menu-driven options through the phone’s display, anyone can easily figure out how to do anything on these phones without ever needing to read any of the documentation.

The speakerphone sounds nice, although the volume of the speaker could’ve been louder (in my opinion). Each phone allows you to control the ringing tone, volume, and delay ringing options for each line individually. Believe it or not, that level of control of line ringing assignments are usually reserved for KSU systems only! Intercom calling worked flawlessly. All-Page was loud and very practical for a busy home with an office, small business, or retail shop.

With a cost of about $100 per phone, these are an outstanding value for any large home or growing business with 2 or more phone lines looking for the simplicity of replacing their old phones with something more serious, flexible, and functional.

                    

• Free, Immediate Account Activation (No Spammer Trickery!)
• Free, Unlimited Conference Calls for Personal or Business Use
• Up to 1,000 Callers Connected per Conference Call
• Reservation-less, Available 24/7
• High Quality and 10-Year Proven Reliability
• Dedicated U.S. Phone Number and Access Code (No Computer Required!)
• Real-time Conference Control via Web or iPhone App
• Free Recording, Download, and Playback
• E-mailed Call Report after each Conference Call

From the advice of one of our customers, we setup a free account at FreeConferenceCall.com but remained a bit skeptical of a conference call hosting service that was absolutely free.  According to their website, “If you’re paying for conference calls, you’re paying too much!”  I can tell you, first hand, this is a worthwhile service and I’d easily and confidently recommend it.

Disclaimer:  We have no relationship with this company whatsoever and receive no referral commissions of any kind for signing up people to their service.  Rather, we were so impressed with the convenience and call quality that we wanted to share this valuable resource with our web audience.  (If you know of a  service or product that you believe we should review next, send us an e-mail and tell us about it!)

If I told you that there was a company offering completely 100% free teleconference calling, that would be a pretty good deal by itself right?  Well, it’s nothing new.  FreeConferenceCall.com has been providing free conference calling for about 10 years and they’re really good at it.  So good in fact, they just added some upgrades that made me take notice.  If you have ever needed a conference for a quick way to connect family and friends, looking to offer group training, launching a new business campaign, or just need a phone number where hundreds of people can connect to participate in a presentation and Q&A discussion, look no further than FreeConferenceCall.com!

Awesome Feature #1.  Beautiful, simple web interface. They have an online account management system that allows you, as the conference host, to login and visually see the details of every participant in your conference call.  You can select an individual and mute their audio so they don’t disturb the rest of the conference, assign each Caller ID number a name or description of your choice so you’ll know who’s who, and when you open the discussion for Q&A you will visually see which user is talking so even if they don’t say who they are, you’ll know.  It’s an awesome interface that is very responsive in real-time.  Oh yeah… did I forget to mention that FreeConferenceCall.com can RECORD the entire conference (up to 6 hours) for you so you can download it later, post it to your website, or add it to your podcast?  All at no charge whatsoever!

Awesome Feature #2. iPhone App. Just released, this quick download from Apple’s App Store puts this powerful conference service in the palm of your hand.  Can you imagine creating, connecting, and managing a conference call, in real-time, of hundreds of participants all from the touch-screen of your iPhone?

As you can see from the screen snapshots, you have the voice call in the background using your bluetooth headset or speakerphone and all of your conference controls are on-screen.  No more remembering special codes or having conference participants hear touch tones as you fumble to control features!

Awesome Feature #3.  It’s FREE!! Yes, it is really free. Why?  Well, they hope that you upgrade to their toll-free conferencing service or dedicated, no PIN code service.  For the free service, they assign you a PIN code that’s yours to keep and all your conference call participants access the conference call through a telephone number assigned from the 712 area code.  Get assigned some PIN code you don’t like?  No problem at all to click a button on your web account management and get a new PIN code assigned within seconds.  Don’t like that new one?  Keep clicking the button until you get a six-digit number you like.  As long as you occasionally use the service every once in a while, that PIN code is assigned to no one else and is yours to keep!

Why Would I Use It?

There are many great reasons to get yourself a free account so you, too, can create an almost unlimited party conference call.  We use ours for connecting with customers, collaboration on projects with other companies, and organizing discussions with technology partners.  Borrowed from their website, here are some other applications:

• Regional / National Sales Meetings
• New Product Training / Launches
• Multi-Vendor Conferences
• Project Management Team Meetings
• Cross Functional / Divisional Meetings
• Crisis Response Meetings
• Teaching / Educational Seminars
• Motivational Seminars
• School Group / Organization Meetings
• Sports Teams Meetings
• Distributing Anonymous Phone Numbers To Your Online Friends
• Family Reunions
• Religious / Bible Study Groups

Getting Started!

If you don’t have an iPhone, that’s okay.  You can use ANY phone you want.  Even a PC is only required to register, but not needed to run the conference call.  Click here to be taken directly to the free registration page on FreeConferenceCall.com, enter your name and e-mail, then click submit.  They e-mail you back with all the details to connect, host, and manage the conference call.

If you do have an Apple iPhone, you’ll want to get the free App from the App Store or click here to be redirected to their iPhone-specific web page to register for free and read about their new iPhone App that makes this conference calling amazingly simple!

The web account management page will display your conference call dial in number, an access code for you to enter as the “host” of the conference, and an access code to give out to your callers who will be participants. Print this page by clicking on the button in the upper right hand corner.

Now, start using your free conference call.  The service is available immediately, with no advertisements or spam.  Your callers will have no idea you are using a “free” conference calling service at all…. unless they’ve read this article too (and in that case, you know you’re both fiscally smart people!)

                    

Tax time is one of those events in a small business that quickly creates a pile of paperwork that is just no longer needed.  I’m not suggesting you shred everything, as the IRS might frown on that one!  But let’s be honest, you really don’t need to keep every vendor invoice, bank statement, utility bill, customer fax, health benefits or insurance statement, or financial investments summary.

Unfortunately, you can just toss it in the trash as they each contain very privileged and confidential information that criminals and competitors would love to get their hands on!   To be trusted by your customers, you need to invest in a shredder and take their personal, confidential information as seriously as you take your own.

Why Not Just Any Ol’ Cheapo Shredder?

For small business use, you really can’t just run down to Target or Walmart and purchase a little home office shredder expecting it to last too long.  They just don’t build those cheapo residential shredders for any reasonable use!  I know, I’ve been through three in two years!!

The cheap ones overheat easily and usually only eat 5 or so pages at a time.  Do you really have free time to separate that pile into 5 sheets or less?  Can you afford to wait for the shredder to cool down?  Of course not.

Enter the Fellowes SB-89Ci

The Fellowes SB-89Ci shredder is easily the best shredder under $200!  Every feature is a direct result of customer feedback from office users just like yourself.  Anti-jam technology, safety shut off hand proximity sensor, visible window to know when its getting full, and cross-cut shredding security are just to name a few.

This thing has teeth!  It will tear up paper, CDs, credit cards, envelopes, staples, paperclips, ID cards… anything you could imagine, this powerful device will destroy any evidence of their previous existence.  It is really fantastic and works like a horse.  Never any delays, jams, or overheats after almost a half an hour of use!  I couldn’t recommend it more highly, and we’ve got the absolute best price that you just won’t find anywhere else — delivered right to your day in a day or two!

Look, we’ve all heard the horrors of identify theft but you’ve also got competitor theft to worry about!  Seventy-five percent of all crime are crimes of “convenience” and opportunity.  Don’t make it easy for you or your business to be a “convenient” target.  Isn’t your confidential paperwork, digital security, and piece of mind worth a modest $200?

                    

… could become your new home phone — cancel your landline and save more than $240 a year!

… could be connected to multiple cordless telephones throughout your house?

… could be charging and placed in one location for best cell reception, while you carry on a cordless conversation?

Tired of Playing Hide-and-Seek?

So many people these days have canceled their home landline telephone service to, instead, use only their cellular telephone exclusively as their “home number”. But the problem is that once you get home and you set the cell phone down somewhere (and relax…), your cell phone starts to ring and you are dashing all over the house trying to find it before you lose the call to voicemail! Remember when you had a “home phone” and you had extensions all over the house, within reach no matter what room you were sitting?

With the new Panasonic KX-TH1212B cordless DECT 6.0 telephone “system”, your cell phone multiplies its inexpensive phone service cost and affordable minute plan to up to 6 much more comfortable, longer battery life DECT 6.0 cordless handsets conveniently placed throughout the home. Each handset has a built-in speakerphone, Caller ID and Caller ID Call Waiting, Dial-by-name Address Book, Handset-to-Handset intercom/paging, and interference-free 1.9GHz operation — frequencies that are not shared with Wi-Fi, baby monitors, or any other consumer devices.

• Panasonic Link-to-Cell built-in technology connects your cell calls to your home handset extensions.
• Features easy initial registration using the Bluetooth Auto-Link feature (then cell phone automatically links to base via Bluetooth everytime you enter your home).
• Your cell calls will ring through on your new Panasonic DECT Link-to-Cell handset(s), including Call Waiting calls!
• Charge your cell phone while talking on this cordless phone and speak on a crystal clear connection.
• Improve the range in your house and eliminate those dropped calls; you can also still use your cell plan minutes to make calls.

First Impressions?

Whether you’ve got a home phone line and a cell phone, or just a cell phone, this is an amazing cordless phone system that works very well! After all the reviews I read on this, I must say I was a bit questionable regarding this phone. But, I decided to take the plunge. I found the performance of this phone, on both the landline and Bluetooth connection, absolutely flawless! Setup only took less than 15 minutes, as easy as you can sync any Bluetooth device to your mobile phone — of which, the manual does any excellent job of guiding you through. Finally, plug in your home phone line (if you have one) and that’s it!

Although the DECT 6.0 cordless phone system operates in a frequency range untouched by other consumer devices, Bluetooth operates in the same frequency range as Wi-Fi. If you put the cell phone too far from the Panasonic base unit, or you install the system right next to a Wi-Fi router, you will hear some obvious “clicking” in your conversation. Simply make sure you dock your cell phone in it’s charging station within 6-10 feet of the base unit, unobstructed if possible, as the instructions say to do, and you won’t have any problems. I have never had and issue with connectivity and I believe that is why.

Paring with your Bluetooth cell phone is very simple. I have mine connected with my Blackberry Curve, but this Panasonic system will allow up to two separate Bluetooth connections — so you and your signifant other can share the system. Simply leave your Bluetooth activated on your cell phone and, when you leave in the morning, it will automatically disconnect and when you come home it will automatically reconnect with your cell. It is completely transparent, just set it and forget it!

The cordless phones will ring if it is landline or cellular call, allowing you to answer either from any extension as well as allow you to make outgoing calls through your land or cell from any extension also. You can set different ringers for landline and each cell phone in order to tell if it is a landline call or cell call ringing in. It even gives one short ring when a text message is received, so you’ll know to check your cell phone for your text message.

Each handset can be set with its own ringer volumes and ringer tone choices for each call type: landline, cell 1, and cell 2. Three ringer-sounding rings are available, as well as 7 melody/musical rings. Because you are able to set different cordless extensions differently, you can place a cordless extension in a baby’s room or guest bedroom without disturbing them when an incoming call rings the rest of the house.

Save Money — Cancel your Landline!

If you plan to use the system without a landline, you’ll want to enter the programming code so the cordless handsets will automatically default to selecting the cell phone for making outbound calls. Simply pick up any handset, press the Menu button, then enter #157. It will beep to let you know the programming change has been accepted. When you enable cell-only mode, the landline is completely disabled and you will not be able to make (or receive) landline calls through the cordless even if you do connect a landline until you enter the same Menu #157 code again to re-enable the landline jack. You can toggle this feature back and forth at any time, if you ever need to change it.

Final Thoughts…

This system is absolutely great! No more running through the house to find my cell phone or missing a call all together. I simply reach over while watching TV and answer as you would any house phone regardless of which line or phone is calling in.

Pros:

Select a seperate tone for cell phone 1, cell phone 2, and your landline (if you’ve connected one), so you’ll know who is receiving the call by the type of ring tone. You can even choose an incoming call on cell phone 1 to ring only cordless handset 3, while incoming calls on cell phone 2 will ring all cordless handsets! Now that’s flexibility!

It has two bonus features that I absolutely love: First, each cordless handset has a verbal announcement feature that will speak the Caller ID information through the handset speakers so you don’t even need to look at the Caller ID to know who is calling! In addition, the system has a “Night mode” on each handset to temporarily (and automatically) turn off the ringer on the cordless extension during the times you program — without affecting the ringing on the other cordless extensions!

Adding additional handsets is super easy! The battery replacement (which you’ll likely to need in about two years or so) for other cordless telephones usually costs as much as a new phone! The Panasonic cordless handsets in this system use two, standard, rechargeable AAA batteries which can be purchased anywhere for well under $10 for a set of four! A+ to Panasonic for using an standard AAA battery, instead of some proprietary and expensive battery pack!

Cons:

If you are talking on a landline call and then your cell phone rings, you’ll hear only your cell phone ringing and you can’t answer it until you end your landline call. If you are on a cell phone call and the landline rings, you won’t even hear it ring — let alone be able to answer it! For people that have canceled their landline entirely, this won’t matter much anyway. Other than that small inconvenience, for those people who still use a landline, this system has many features for the very small price and certainly delivers what it promises!

Order Now!

For less $79, you’ll receive the Panasonic base unit plus two KX-TGA930T cordless handsets. Add additional cordless handsets, for up to 6 total, and have a phone within reach throughout the house for less than $35 each (and that price includes the batteries and charger)!

                    

When your callers are placed on hold, what do they hear? Are you frustrating or confusing callers with silence? 94% of all marketing budgets are spent on inducing a customer to call, while only 6% is spent on handling the call once it is received.

Unfortunately, integrating a music-on-hold solution to Non-KSU (or “KSU-less”) phone systems which do not have a central connection cabinet is often impossible — until now! Any brand or model two-line, three-line, or four-line telephone can now place callers on hold with custom music with voice-over messages, thanks to the Intellitouch On Hold Plus OHP-6500.

Device Details

The rear of the device has many connection possibilities, for today and tomorrow. First, you’ll notice on the right are two telephone line connections. Each telephone line connection combines two telephone lines (L1/L2 and L3/L4) in one jack each. In the center of the rear panel, you’ll find that you have an audio out RCA-style jack so you can connect this unit to a KSU system when your office grows past four-lines.

About a third from the left, a USB jack is provided for connection to your PC. The included PC software allows you to produce your own custom music on hold production including voice-overs to inform, educate, reinforce your marketing, promote your image, and differentiate your company from competitors. Once you are satisifed with your music playlist, you temporarily connect the PC to the OHP6500 to transfer the production to the device’s internal memory. Once the transfer is complete, you disconnect the PC and the on-hold system operates on its own with no PC required. If you need music on hold but don’t have the time to record a custom music-on-hold playlist, the unit comes preloaded with music so you can being using it immediately (and then customize it later). In addition, a certificate is included that allows you to have a professional talent voice-over music-on-hold production created for free in case you don’t want your own voice on the hold music.

Simple, Quick Installation

As soon as you open the box, you only need to connect the device to the electric outlet and plug your office lines (up to four) to the back. The unit comes preloaded with generic music that you can change later and load a complete custom recording with voice-overs describing your products and services to people on hold. Instantly, every telephone in your home or office, including cordless and phones like the AT&T 1040, AT&T 1070 (view our review of this phone), or AT&T 1080 for example, can connect callers to hold music by you simply pressing ** before pressing the Hold button on the telephone. What a huge image improvement over empty silence – it couldn’t be simpler!

But for an even easier configuration, this system includes two adapters, called TEHMAs or Telephone Extension Hold Music Activators, that you can simply connect to the coiled handset cord of any two of your telephones to avoid the requirement of pressing **. With these included adapters installed, you simply press the normal Hold button and this music-on-hold device “knows” when you placed a call on hold and immediately starts playing your recorded music to the caller! It is compatible with every type of two-line and four-line phone system. And as your office grows and might need a more traditional “KSU”-based phone system, your investment is protected as this music-on-hold device can be connected to that new telephone system just as easily with no additional adapters or upgrades necessary.

Of course, you can purchase additional phone adapters very inexpensively to outfit every phone in your office so hold music is completely automatic everywhere in your office. When you are ready to return to the caller, simply pick up the held line at any telephone and the music will automatically turn off and you can resume your conversation.

Conclusion

This unit and included certificate for a free professional talent music-on-hold production are a great value that is impossible to beat! For our test, we’ve been running the unit for 6 months continuously without any problems. Surprisingly, the unit doesn’t even get warm! Our custom production was completed and returned back to us in less than a week and we uploaded the production from the PC to the music on hold unit in about one minute. The voice quality is so impressive, we could have easily used the professionally recorded announcements for a radio commercial as well!

If you have been looking for a way to add a professional touch and image to your four-line phone system without replacing your entire phone system, the Intellitouch On Hold Plus 6500 is an absolute dream come true. When used with the TEHMA adapters installed at each phone, the system operates completely automatically. For less than $250, you just can’t beat it! Installation is quick and easy. Get one for your office and no longer hear your caller sigh when you ask them to “Please hold.”