Friday, April 25, 2008

PhoneGnome is Slingbox for your phone line

The PhoneGnome box is very much like the Slingbox. Slingbox plugs into your cable TV (or some TV source) and connects it to the Internet, as shown below:

Slingbox makes your home TV service available to you on your PC or mobile phone over the Internet.

The PhoneGnome box does almost the exact same thing for your home telephone service. Let's change the above diagram to a PhoneGnome setup:


Just as Slinbgbox "slings" your TV, PhoneGnome "slings" your phone wherever you want. As with Slingbox, even though it doesn't show it in the above diagrams, both products can also "sling" to your mobile phone.

With Slingbox, your "TV Source" can be cable, antenna, a TiVo etc. With PhoneGnome, your "Phone Source" can be an ordinary landline (wall jack) or the output of a cable phone box, a Vonage box, or any ATA-based phone service. This means you can add a softphone to your Cable "digital phone" service using PhoneGnome. This makes it possible to use that unlimited calling plan anytime, anywhere. You can even use the ooma hub as your "Phone Source", making it possible to make free domestic calls anytime from your PC or mobile phone, or use your ooma service at work, or at Starbucks, etc.