What was Rabbit and what happend to FoneZone?
Grundie
What was the Rabbit service all about? I still see buildings in my old
town with little signs with the Rabbit logo on them? Was it a
pre-cursor to orange (hutchinson telecom and all)?
Also does anyone remember FoneZone? IIRC It was going to be big in the
late 80's, or so they thought. Basically very low power send only
phones which were used in zones with very low power receivers (100m
range or there abouts) . The receiver were located in building foyers
and on lamposts etc. The idea was that it would be much cheaper than
ordinary mobile phones. There still is a receiver in Carlisle railway
station above the ticket windows. I would assume that cheaper ordinary
mobile phones killed the service off. Can anyone shed more light on
this?
Bye for now,
Rob
--
"Senda me spam, I smasha your face!"
phil henry
wrote:
>Hello There!
>
>What was the Rabbit service all about? I still see buildings in my old
>town with little signs with the Rabbit logo on them? Was it a
>pre-cursor to orange (hutchinson telecom and all)?
>
>Also does anyone remember FoneZone? IIRC It was going to be big in the
>late 80's,
From OFTEL's History section
http://www.oftel.gov.uk/about/history.htm
1989
Four telepoint (CT2) licences were issued. [The Cordless Telephony
Standard. A digital system using frequency shift keying in the 864 to
868 MHZ band using time division duplex.] [Outgoing calls only].
1991
BT Phonepoint service suspended
1992
Rabbit launched by Hutchison.
1993
Rabbit service terminated
Avanti
"Grundie" <gru...@hkhkdlfh.com> wrote in message
news:9ecmftsgobhkpbaup...@4ax.com...
> Hello There!
>
> What was the Rabbit service all about?
Fone zone.
> I still see buildings in my old
> town with little signs with the Rabbit logo on them?
GOsh where do you live????
> Was it a
> pre-cursor to orange (hutchinson telecom and all)?
yes sort of, short range cordless phone extension prior to the offering of
the gsm1800 licence.
Alex Procopiou
> town with little signs with the Rabbit logo on them?
Err... could it be the playboy logo?
Grundie
wrote:
>
>"Grundie" <gru...@hkhkdlfh.com> wrote in message
>news:9ecmftsgobhkpbaup...@4ax.com...
>> Hello There!
>>
>> What was the Rabbit service all about?
>
>Fone zone.
>
>> I still see buildings in my old
>> town with little signs with the Rabbit logo on them?
>
>GOsh where do you live????
>
I live in NI now, I used to live in Carlisle, but I know from my
travels the signs are still there?
If you're in Carlisle look at the lamposts in Caldewgate outside the
cycle shop and you'll see Rabbit signs and there are some in
Botchergate as well.
Bye for now,
Rob
R. Mark Clayton
Not sure about the FoneZone, but what you describe is very much like Rabbit.
The key problem was that no-one could phone you, so take up was minimal.
A similar fatal flaw allowed me to predict that Network Computers would
never take off.
>
> Bye for now,
> Rob
> --
> "Senda me spam, I smasha your face!"
--
R. Mark Clayton
Jim Taylor
one...)
In those days, cellular phone battery life was much shorter. According to
Hutchison Whampoa's research, people who carried cellular phones (rather
than keeping them in cars) kept them turned off for fear of not being able
to make a call when they needed to. Standby times were just a few hours.
So their logic was that the functionality of Rabbit (with a pager perhaps)
was similar to the reality of cellular phones plus you had cheaper calls
and it would work as a cordless phone at home.
But of course what they failed to realise is that no-one bought a cellular
phone believing it would be switched off much of the time (even if that's
what they did) and Rabbit was seen as a poor man's mobile.
Jim
Chris Wyatt
withthe instruction book,video and pen also the Rabbit rabbit with his
waistcoat.Changed the phone & charger for a Nokia 2140 which is still
running OK today
Tumbleweed
"R. Mark Clayton" <MCla...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:9dh9b3$c15$8...@plutonium.btinternet.com...
>
<snip>
>
> A similar fatal flaw allowed me to predict that Network Computers would
> never take off.
> >
Well you were wrong there, they are all around you and are called
'browsers'.
--
Tumbleweed
Remove 'spam' from email replies (but no email reply necessary to
newsgroups)
David Barr
"Chris Wyatt" <chris.st...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:9dhj15$rfj$1...@plutonium.btinternet.com...
The way I see it, is that rabbit may be a long gone form of mobile phone
technology, bu the telephones appear to make very good cordless phones for
most home users, if anyone wants to point me in the direction of a webs irte
that could show me a picure and a tech spec. it would be most appreciated!
tia
david
Nemo
Public Telepoint networks. This one was run by Ferranti, from Manchester,
and until they pulled the plug, were the smalles of the 4 networks. Which
were;
Phonepoint (BT)
Zonephone (Ferranti)
Callpoint (Mercury)
all these closed down, then the following commenced, before closing 18
months later;
Rabbit (Hutchison)
Hope this helps!
N
Des
"replace no-one with iain to reply" <no-...@hairydog.co.uk> wrote in message
>
> I still use Rabbit handsets - seven of the eight handsets I have still
> work, and all four bases are fine.
I have two unused handsets and chargers! if anyone is interested?
or maybe I need a base unit!
Des
Nick B.
Currently reverse-engineering a ZonePhone base unit controller board. So far it runs Nascom BASIC.
Happy lockdown times.
MB
> I'm just following up this 20 year old thread for the purpose of bookmarking it.
>
> Currently reverse-engineering a ZonePhone base unit controller board. So far it runs Nascom BASIC.
>
> Happy lockdown times.
Nick B.
Standard. A digital system using frequency shift keying in the 864 to
868 MHZ band using time division duplex.] [Outgoing calls only]."
David Woolley
> Looking at Ofcom's Frequency allocation table, it's listed as being used for low power devices and ISM.
different ISM band.