John Battelle wrote a short piece appreciating the “home phone” which I agree with. One thing I love about home phones is they can be corded and powered which means that:
1) they _aren’t_ mobile — ie they always remain in the same place and
2) they never run out of battery or power.
For these two simple reasons, our home phones are frequently used in our house (and, yes, one of them is in a family room and it does get used in a shared fashion like John describes).
In fact, I’ve long searched for a cordless phone system that gets its phone signal wirelessly, but is otherwise a corded handset that takes power from the wall. So it wouldn’t require me to have copper wiring where I install it but it still holds to #1 and #2 above. But this product doesn’t exist — Panasonic and the other multi-line handset makes haven’t figured out that this product has redeeming qualities.
The reason I bought this two-line multi-handset cordless phone system? Because it’s base is a corded two-line telephone.
Rakesh, you need only ask! There are several options for integrating your cellular service and your home phones. If you’s like a dedicated number for your home and you have a family plan you can get a CDMA or GSM gateway device. These run in the $200-$300 range and basically connect your home phones to a cellular account. I had a GSM SIP gateway that allowed our home phones (Gigaset SIP/DECT cordless not unlike your Panasonic) to make/receive calls via T-mobile. This was basically a backup line, but also provided 411 and 911 service.
http://www.mgraves.org/2008/11/how-to-add-a-cellular-trunk-to-your-voip-system-part-1/
Alternatively, you could get a simpler consumer gateway that uses Bluetooth to connect your cell phone to the phone phones. The Gigaset One (http://www.mgraves.org/2010/04/gigaset-one-bluetooth-based-cell-to-pstn-interface/) is such as device. It sells for <$100.