E.T. phone home/office

There are days when I believe that I'm sane and most of the world is crazy. There are just as many when the responses to this column have convinced me that the opposite is probably true. However, on one matter, I know I'm right.

I know I speak for over 20 million small office/home office (SOHO) users-a "silent minority" whose membership is growing-in making the following plea to the intelligent end point industry, formerly known as the customer premises equipment vendors. Please make me the phone I need. If you are really good at what you do, you'll make tens or possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in profit instead of just millions.

I am now going to break the cardinal rule of consulting. Without hope of compensation, I am willingly divulging invaluable intellectual property. This unusual public service should underscore how desperate the need is for us "Unfortunate 20+ Million."

This is a hang-up our businesses literally can't afford.

We need a two-line in-building wireless PCS phone at mass market prices.

The phone must have, at a minimum: digital operation in the dedicated in-building PCS band, in other words, not a 900 MHz phone; a charging station embedded with the best speakerphone technology available; and a handset whose form factor is modeled after cellular pocket phones, not the cordless bricks we use in our residences. Handset capabilities should include:

• A large display for calling name and number ID, message waiting indication and other network service information for on-screen help.

• Easy access for conference, hold, intercom, mute, speakerphone, speed dialing, and volume adjustment feature activation.

• Headset enabled.

• Data-readiness.

• A $300 price point, but preferably $200 or less to really blow this out. The phone should also contain the complete radio base station because an independent antenna could provide more optimal site coverage.

I could elaborate on how this phone can be evolved dual mode operation with wide area wireless services, ISDN, the Internet and Cable TV plays, etc. However, I've admitted to acting crazy only some of the time.

But, you ask, doesn't this phone exist? No! There are two-line 900 MHz digital cordless phones but no small handsets. There are adjunct digital "systems" (radio controller, base stations and handsets), to be added to an existing phone system, and integrated systems, but the least expensive of these can be upwards of $1000 per user.

The market I'm talking about is not about operation behind sophisticated office systems. It is about serving users who have an additional line in their homes for business purposes. We need a true pocket phone for the 50% of the time we are home, available, away from our desk but not within arm's reach of the phone that terminates that business line.

In an age when getting somebody to return a call once can be a life-defining event, every entrepreneur has a recurring nightmare. The call you've expected for two weeks starts ringing when you are outside in a pouring rain bringing in the mail. Your network-based voice mail service beats your mad dash to the phone. Panicked, you immediately return the call, but the calling party isn't there.

I (and millions like me) will pay a premium over the price of a standard-issue two-line cordless phone for that pocket form factor for when I "roam" SOHO and for that quality speakerphone when I'm parked at my desk.

Here is what puzzles me. I've pitched this concept to the top executives of the leading phone manufacturers in the world for more than four years. I've been told universally it's a great idea, the technology exists to do that, and at reasonable prices. Yet, no phone. Whatever happened to this industry's supposed prowess at market segmentation?

It is a good thing that E.T. had the ingenuity to rig up his own wireless phone to call home. If he had to wait for the telecom industry to make him a personal (wearable on his person) phone for Elliot's house he might have missed it when his parents called to tell him they were coming to get him.

Peter Bernstein is President of infonautics Consulting Inc., Ramsey, N.J. His e-mail address is 714-9256@mcimail.com.