Ain't no mountain high enough

EnGenius SN-920 Ultra: Way cordless

November 3, 2000
Web posted at: 10:28 a.m. EST (1528 GMT)

With Ed Curran Technogadgets

(CNN) -- The freedom of a cordless phone makes it perfect for the home office.

It gives you the freedom to act like you're hard at work. In reality you're taking that important call while making a dash from your refrigerator back to your home office on the second floor -- and trying not to sound winded.

My first cordless phone was a unique product. I can't tell you the year but I'd bet it was around 1984. The phone was a Radio Shack model and I could go about as far with my old corded model as I could with the amazing new cordless variety.

My cordless phone also taught me what a 60-cycle hum sounded like. Walk anywhere near a fluorescent light and the buzz overpowered your call.

All my friends were amazed at this wonderful invention and were soon going cordless. The trend hasn't slowed.

Movement for moderns

ED PHONES HOME Technogadgets' Ed Curran did a "Gadget Guy" report about the EnGenius SN-920 Ultra long-range cordless phone on CNN. One ringy-dingy. Two ringy-dingies. (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     QUICK VOTE Does an EnGenius cordless sound like a career asset to you? Yeah. I need more range on my cordless around the home office. Not sure. If I can wander too far I won't get any work done. No. I just forward my home-office phone to my cell phone and keep moving. View Results

Todays cordless phones have little in common with that revolutionary Radio Shack device and have become the phone of choice for many Americans. Take a trip to your local electronics retailer and compare the number of cordless phones to the old, wired, variety. In the first quarter of this year there were about 8 million cordless phones sold.

More cordless phones are leaving the shelves because better technology has resulted in more people embracing the cordless phone. A great technological leap happened in the past few years with the introduction of 900-megahertz phones, digital spread spectrum phones and 2.4-gigahertz phones.

New models sound better and have longer ranges. And the really good ones can't be picked up on your neighbor's baby monitor.

Theres a new cordless that takes mobility to a whole new level. The EnGenius phone has a range measured not in feet, but in miles. This 900-mhz system has operated at a distance of 8 miles in testing.

The manufacturer of the EnGenius SN-920 Ultra says it provides a signal that penetrates up to 12 floors in an office building, 3,000 acres in an open field and 250,000 square feet in a warehouse. The system utilizes military-type digital security, hopping to different frequencies more than 200 times per second

The EnGenius phone does more than just "go the distance." The digital 2-way radio feature offers clear communication between handsets with the ability to talk and listen at the same time. Caller ID with call waiting enables users to identify who's calling and switch between conversations. The call transfer capability allows a call to be sent to another handset.

This gives your business more mobility than ever before. Your EnGenius cordless phone can now travel with you from the home office to the fridge, to the park at the corner, even to the Starbucks at Fifth and Main. Just don't let your clients hear them shouting out latté orders.

Ed Curran has covered the world of high-tech for more than a dozen years and is the publisher of Technogadgets® -- www.technogadgets.com In addition to his weekly column here at CNN.com/career, watch for Curran's reports on CNN television.

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