just an observation...
 

http://www.cingular.com/beyond_voice/fastforward

Has anyone seen the commercials for this product? It's called "Fast Forward" by Cingular (not sure if anyone else is offering this service). The idea is you set your cell phone into this cradle and it forwards calls made to your cell to your land line, and it doesn't take up your anytime minutes... the commercials for this product have various people running around their house with their phone ringing in the background (which PISSES me off cause they use my old ringtone and always makes me look at my phone), then they get to the phone and they complain about how they always miss their calls and how this new accessory solves that problem.

so my observation is... if you're putting your cell into a cradle when you get home, won't you always know where your phone is, negating this advantage? Does this strike anyone else as bad marketing?

I just plug mine into the charger when i get home, so other than having my home phone ring more often and not having it count against my cell plan, what's the point?

If I'm understanding the concept correctly, it might be beneficial for people with big houses or multi-level places.

Like my house for instance, cell is plugged into the charger in my room, I'm on the third floor, phone rings... "oh crap" *run, run, run, run* they hang up. If my cell were forwarded to the house-line, I could just pick up a phone in one of the rooms or a cordless.

I don't know if they have limits on the amount of time you can have your cell forwarded down there, but they do here. I think it's usually something like 1000 minutes/month or something crappy like that. They charge for every minute it's forwarded after that though....

Verizon offers that too.

Yeah that is a pretty good idea. You can put your phone on the charger and not have to worry about your batteries dying while your at the house. Plus, not using your cell minutes is a great thing as well.

in houses that have more than one room it's a great thing because you usually have a phone closer to you than your cell. Then again, there are those that don't bother to even have a land line. Now I have a cordless phone and I'm usually searching for that one as it is, and what if there are like 3 of you in the house with cellphones how many cellphones does it support?

I will have a land line forever since ALL laws regarding wire tapping involve WIRES.. not that I have anything to hide, but I'm not giving quarter to anyone for my privacy.

I said the exact same thing regarding that commercial. If they have the stupid phone on the cradle then they know where it is.

Yah it is good when you have a large house and you might not hear the cell phone ring, but it is bad advertising.

I wonder if there is a distinct ring for your phone so you know it's your cellphone. It says it doesn't count against your minutes, but it could have it's own minutes.

I think the cell phone industry is totally ripping everyone off. It can't cost that much more to operate than a regular phone. I wish they would hurry up and standardize everything so prices will go down.

fyi america is one of the only countries in the world where you can't own your own cell phone #, we're all just renting.

I do see the advantages of this accessory, but the main reason they're saying it's so great is so you can find your phone, just another example of how stupid things slip past the consumers.

Uhh, *69 anyone?

my cell phone tells me the number of anyone who called me when i miss the call, another reason this gadget is pointless.

Costs $1.75 on my phone, half of what the call forwarding does.

I thought the same thing when I first saw it. Pretty dumb, if you ask me.

I know that in Indiana, with SBC being our local phone carrier, (who owns Cingular), you have to sign up for "single billing" to get this new service for free.
The idea is that, both your SBC local/long distance and Cingular phone charges show up on one bill. Hence, they only have to mail one bill, all of the cash shows up at once, and you have to buy this new cradle that allows your cell to 'automaticially' forward all of your calls.

Sounds like we were told that we needed this...

-SF

HAhA...i thought this exact same thing when i was this commercial.......I hope no one buys that thing