ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Hi,
A look on the B&O webpage and the only telephone there is now is the Beocom 6000
What happened to the BC2, BC5?
I don't think the BeoCom 6000 will be around much longer either..
B&O have had enough of phones of all types.
Lee
Thanks Guys
I think it's a real shame. B&O will just become a speaker and TV seller soon. Sound quality is important on devices like telephones, the same as the quality is important for my music systems. No more iconic systems like BS9000, BC2 and BC5 (all ground breaking and innovative) no seperates.
Very sad to see.
Dave.
I can totally understand not wanting to get into the mobile phone sector but it is a shame they may leave the home phone market. It's an area I feel there is a total lack of design and love.....
It is my only pleasure from cold callers when I marvel at the phone design when I hang up ....
we tend to forget there is more to design than designing.
Agree but the home phone market is shrinking all the time.
Peter
Here in Finland, I don't know of anybody who has opened a new land line during this millennium. The only ones who still use a land line phone are those who got it in the '80s and haven't moved even once since that (to exaggerate just a bit). The telcos are even removing old copper from the more sparsely populated areas. If the user wants to keep a "land line", he'll get a table GSM.
--mika
In Denmark you can't sell a land line phone these days.
You can buy lots of BeoCom 6000 and the other B&O land line phones on the second hand market at very (!) low prices.
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
tournedos: Here in Finland, I don't know of anybody who has opened a new land line during this millennium. The only ones who still use a land line phone are those who got it in the '80s and haven't moved even once since that (to exaggerate just a bit). The telcos are even removing old copper from the more sparsely populated areas. If the user wants to keep a "land line", he'll get a table GSM.
All well and good if you live somewhere where there is a mobile signal. At our home we have no mobile signal at all! What do you suggest we use to phone? I don't live in the North Pole or the middle of the Sahara (though they probably do get reception!) we live in the East of France. Not exactly the middle of nowhere. A landline for us is essential - also for our home alarm system/internet access.
Where I live we have a bad german mobile signal and a bad danish mobile signal too.
I can't rely on either of them - so I need my land line phones!
But that does not mean, that I will 'wish for' new telephones from B&O.
In general the time of land line phones is over.
Dave Farr:All well and good if you live somewhere where there is a mobile signal. At our home we have no mobile signal at all! What do you suggest we use to phone? I don't live in the North Pole or the middle of the Sahara (though they probably do get reception!) we live in the East of France.
I was in Tanzania in 2006. It was a revelation to see a Maasai guy dig up a ringing cell phone from under his traditional outfit and start to talk (and yes, there was surprisingly good coverage in the bush, where all you'd expect to see were wild animals).
As I understand, the French government/legislation had a big problem with GSM in the beginning because the encryption method it used was too strong for convenient interception. Perhaps that has slowed things down...
Phones are just not high up my list of things to obsess about the visual aspect of, they are small and don't really attract attention to themselves. I love the look of the B&O phones, and the ones I've used in the past had excellent sound quality, but a phone is just a utilitarian thing to me, whereas I tend to obsess more over audio and video gear. Also, the two B&O phones I had, Beocom 1400 types, both failed in the same way in a very short time, so I was not impressed with the quality.
I recently bought a Panasonic setup, a base station with digital answering machine, and 4 additional handsets plus chargers, all for under 100 dollars US. They work flawlessly, and are small enough you don't really notice that they are uglier than Original Sin... but at that price who cares? I'd rather spend what I saved on my stereo, or more music.
Jeff
I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus.
I do not believe the telephone lines are gone, they have just been repackaged. The copper paths are delivering DSl , Telcos are replacing copper with fiber in the more densely populated areas.
I get Tv, Dsl and Bc2 use on very fast fiber in Dublin and so so VOIP in France.
home phones are not dead.
in the UK to have broadband you pretty much need a phone line and all the digital providers offer home bundle packages that include free phone time, my friends in France have a similar set up and can phone me in the UK FOC during certain hours.
I have a mix of BeoCom and Alessi DECT at home and enjoy the pleasure of use and design but would have liked to see Skype or similar being added.
and if the home phone is dead can the marketing guy ring me .....
i have just cancelled my BT landline and BT Internet as I don't really use the landline and Virgin Media can supply fibre straight into my flat. So my internet connection will be faster and cheaper. I also felt that the recent price rise was unjustified. Another factor was that despite being on the no cold caller list, I kept getting marketing companies ringing me up all the time. I also found that 192.com has all your details wether you like it or not and it is near impossible to get taken off it. For all those reasons I ditched it.
What with FaceTime, email, mobile communications and texting it is more than enough to keep in touch with people.
I agree it is a shame but everything is moving on.
tournedos: I was in Tanzania in 2006. It was a revelation to see a Maasai guy dig up a ringing cell phone from under his traditional outfit and start to talk (and yes, there was surprisingly good coverage in the bush, where all you'd expect to see were wild animals). As I understand, the French government/legislation had a big problem with GSM in the beginning because the encryption method it used was too strong for convenient interception. Perhaps that has slowed things down...
I now perfectly well what you mean! I was in 2006 in Uganda, near the Congo border in a National park. Miles away from civilization, just surrounded by nature and suddenly my lovely wife her mobile was ringing. I was astonished and speechless for moments, she made a perfect call with home. I used to have difficulties when I was trying to make a call in the Belgian Ardennes in those years, just a few miles out of any town.
I left my copper landline also, some 2 years ago. And converted my privat telephone number into a nomadic number for a one time fee. Bought myself a VoIP-telephoneadapter and are making perfect calls with the cheap online VoiP Service Providers. This halved our monthly phone bill by more then 75%.
The Beocom 6000 is working perfect with the Voip adapter, and I would be very disappointed to find out they will stop production. Never in my life I had such a fine sounding telephone together with a very convenient remote. Better get a extra backup phone before they cease production!
"Believe nothing you read and only half of what you see, let your ears tell you the truth."
ajames: What with FaceTime, email, mobile communications and texting it is more than enough to keep in touch with people. I agree it is a shame but everything is moving on.
Again, this is all well and good and while agreeing with the sentiment that 'everything is moving on', it is moving on more for some than others. A bitlike in 'Animal Farm' where 'everyone is equal but some are more equal than others'!.
You fortunately live in an appartment block provided with optic fibre supply - this will never, ever happen where I live, nor will it for many others. Out of your list of 4 communication methods given above, I can only use 1 of those at home and that is e-mail via my landline!
The loss of landlines and phones is also going to be detrimental to all of those people (particularly the older generation) who either do not own other devices such as mobiles, iPads etc and have to rely on an 'old fashioned' method such as a landline phone. I know my father who is 84 years old could not use a mobile as his hands shake so much and he couldnt see the keys to press on a mobile. For him and millions of others in his situation a landline is essential. Not everyone is tech savvy, able to afford all of the things like Macs, iPads nor competent to use them.
Nobody's questioning the use of the lines, but a lot of home phones sit there plugged into a broadband setup for historical reasons. I use mine with my parents, the local pizza/Chinese takeaways and a friend of mine who doesn't have mobile reception.
He doesn't have mobile reception, where is he? Well Sussex actually, only about 1 hour from London and there are millions in the UK like that.
I mostly use my Serene day-to-day and I love it although I totally accept that the market is too fast moving for a company like B&O to produce boutique phones in. Out of curiosity, has anyone modded a version of iOS or Android to look like a B&O design? I remember years ago I made my Windows XP appearancesettings resemble the B&O music software, it was very cool and people often asked what cool/weird OS I was using!
I guess that people, when they are giving up land line phones, are preferring the flexibility of the cell phones/smartphones.
You can take it with you, and it can be a personal phone.
With a land line phone you usually just have one/one line per houshold - and that 'stays at home', when you are leaving.
When you have got used to this flexibility (and the combination phone and smartphone), you don't need the land line phone anymore - and you cancel the land line in order to save the costs.
Sure not everybody has a good cellular reception at home and need the 'old fashioned phone' - like I do.
But that is not enough for B&O to invest further in developing new phones imo.
If the production of the recent types stops, there will still be plenty on the second hand market - bought myself a BeoCom 4 a couple of months ago for 200 DKK (about 20£).
I cut off my landline 10 years ago as I could not get the telco to fix the copper line. They just had no interest and would prefer to move everyone to VoiIP. While the home phone became completely redundant, I do miss the beocom 6000 - just fantastic vioice quality, usability (including being able to lower the stereo volume from the handset). Unfortunately my four phones have sat in the closet since then. I can see this market continue to shrink as mentioned earlier, as once you are used to the functionality of a cellular phone it is difficult to justify a landline (unless you have to). Btw just bought my wife an iPhone 6 - superb!
BV11-55, BS9000, BL1, BL19, Transmitter 1, Beo4, Beocom 6000, BeoTalk1 200, Sennheiser HD600, McIntosh MHA100
Well, for all the fibre optic in my flat, I am at my other place right now and there is hardly any mobile reception, the broadband and BT landline work though so I can still keep in contact, but maybe on reflection the market will find a place for everyone - totally agree that mobile communications are not suitable for all and some of it does seem to depend on where you are. Everything works in the city but not always in the countryside or by the coast.
BTW - using an old GPO Trimphone and it works as well as it did in the 70's but no tone dialling. Looks good in the same room as a Beovision LX - which is also still going strong after all these years despite no analogue reception anymore
You need the beoline to get the dial tone on the BC2.
valve1:You need the beoline to get the dial tone on the BC2.
Just an update on this, since cancelling my BT line, my parents are now complaining that it is expensive to ring me in london on a landline. I bought a VOIP converter and happy to report that I got it up and running with an incoming landline number for free - My Beocom 6000's have a new lease of life as VOIP phones now. The converter, PSTN and router are all in the attic so it's a very neat installation and sound quality is crystal clear. In this application they are perfect for me. I also found that whilst the mobile is good, reception is patchy throughout the flat.
The reason why I think most telecoms aren't offering internet and voip is that they would loose out on landline charges - BT is nearly £19 a month now which is a lot over the year, plus the fact that VOIP cannot guarantee to be available in an emergency - router down or something else. There are probably other technical reasons that I don't understand.
One problem with VOIP for emergency calls is that the physical location of the caller cannot be deduced with any certainty.
Just read in the paper that our local service provider in the capitol area doesn't sell new landline connections any longer. You can't usually even have an old one relocated to a new address. And in sparsely populated areas (which is geographically half of Finland) they have actually been dismantling physical phone lines already for some years.
Millemissen: Sure not everybody has a good cellular reception at home and need the 'old fashioned phone' - like I do.
I know what you mean... I have very poor cellular reception where I live. Although some phone companies are bragging about "99% of the country covered" with 3G. Yeah - right..!!! " /> I have 3G (no 4G) if I go outside, in the garden... Inside the house I can hardly make a simple cellular phone call...And it's not because I live in a countryhouse, far away from civilisation. I actually live inside the city limits (at the edge of town). And all my neighbours have the same problem. I have been writing to the phone Companies about it. Guess what they responded..?:"There's an Antenna mast 900 m from your house -but you are located 18 meters over the top of it" ... Really..??? Denmark is a flat country... The highest point is 157 meters above sea-level. I only live 64 meters above sea level - And they cannot even cope with that..! " />Wonder what they do in Norway - or Switzerland with those Mountains..?
So I still have an "old fashioned phone" - (it runs through my broadband connection, though). A nice Beocom 6000.
But - the market for those landline phones is decreasing every year. So of course, a small company like B&O can not continue making profit on it.
Steffen: Millemissen: Sure not everybody has a good cellular reception at home and need the 'old fashioned phone' - like I do. I know what you mean... I have very poor cellular reception where I live. Although some phone companies are bragging about "99% of the country covered" with 3G.
I know what you mean... I have very poor cellular reception where I live. Although some phone companies are bragging about "99% of the country covered" with 3G.
Note that the 99% claim generally relates to the population and not the geographic area! They make claims like this in Australia, and I can tell you that 99% of the geographic area of Australia is definitely not covered with mobile phone reception..
x:________________________
Jonathan:Note that the 99% claim generally relates to the population and not the geographic area! They make claims like this in Australia, and I can tell you that 99% of the geographic area of Australia is definitely not covered with mobile phone reception.. x:________________________
BeoNut since '75
Jonathan: Note that the 99% claim generally relates to the population and not the geographic area! They make claims like this in Australia, and I can tell you that 99% of the geographic area of Australia is definitely not covered with mobile phone reception..
Technically this is correct, however, it doesn't really help many people. Even going from Melbourne to Mallacoota which is a 550km run, I for example could not be logged on with my computer with in built 3G card as it would constantly drop out. Even 3G phones and 4G phones would do the same because of the landscape. This btw is our No1 Highway (in name not in traffic), so it's silly. The older mobile phones CDMA were better for the bush, but still that's not relevant anymore.
I still like a copper wire lol.