I Had to Laugh…

I say that for one reason. I was there 5 years ago when the Verizon VP pushing the development of this product could not understand the question I posed then — “Considering that 80% of all homes in the US only have satin cable wiring in most of the rooms. How do you expect this product to be useful? Nobody will pay $1000 to have their home rewired for a $200 item.” (For the phone to work requires a CAT 5 cable.) Like the Sprint commercial said, you could hear a pin drop. Sadly the VP at the time did not understand either the question or the market challenge being offered. –

Since times are getting harder and people look for various ways to tighten their belts without affecting one’s lifestyle by too much, how about taking a look at how many phone calls you make from home each month? Instead of relying on calling cards, how about making use of your existing broadband connection and utilize VoIP technology instead? Verizon has a new Hub to cater to such a crowd, being an intuitive device that puts a communications command center in the home while merging both wireline and wireless connectivity. It doesn’t matter whether you’re running on a broadband connection supplied by Verizon FiOS Internet, DSL or any other high-speed service provider, the Verizon Hub works with them all.

Looks like it has not changed from what I saw demoed that many years ago. So is it a bad idea? No. Great potentinal for it in homes and SoHo situation. Even as a nightstand phone to replace your clock radio/alarm clock/phone it would be great. But the problem is that last scenario will only happen in new construction.

Great product with a bad realization of the infrastructure that represents its market barrier.

Linky.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with Telco terminology. Satin cable is a 8 conductor wiring encased in a ovoline sheath, generally grey. The sheath has a satiny look and feel to it hence source of the term.
That cabling works fine for an analog phone system that is in most existing home construction. Data cable however is called generally ‘4 pair twisted’ of a given CAT X rating. Satin cable can’t even be rated and the sheath style does not lend itself to being encased in a standard CAT rated plastic plug header.

I think you get a glimmer of the fundamental basic that is missing with the offering Verizon is proposing.