Telecommuter dream phone debuts

Plantronics, the Santa Cruz, Calif. headset maker, has introduced a phone that works with just about every comms platform available. The Calisto Pro landline charging base cradles a cordless handset and a Bluetooth headset, and allows for push-button switching between land, mobile and VoIP calls, TWICE magazine's Lisa Johnston reports.

The handset has a roaming range of 300 feet with a built-in speaker phone, noise-canceling mic and the ability to ingest 200 Microsoft Outlook contacts. The base station sports a USB port and the capability to transfer Skype and Yahoo!Voice calls directly to the headset. The $279 multi-platform phone is scheduled for release next month.

This sleek 3G phone arrives just as SunRocket's flame-out and Skype's outage cast a chill on the home office set. A phone that jumps easily between a landline and voice-over-IP is something the VoIP industry would do well to push.

For more:
- TWICE coverage is here
- The San Francisco Chronicle has details here