Cisco-LinksysCIT300 Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit

by Cisco

Product Details

• Item Weight: 13.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000GX9NV8
• Item model number: CIT300
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #23 in Electronics > Office Electronics > Telephones & Accessories > VoIP > Handsets
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001

Product Description

Linksys Dual-mode Internet Telephony Kit Cordless handset convenience for Skype users. Connect the USB Base Station to your PC, and your Skype contact list appears on the handset's screen. Just choose from the list and talk! Get cordless handset convenience when you use Skype! Now you don't have to sit in front of your computer when you want to talk to your friends. The Linksys Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit comes with the handset, charger, and a USB Base Station that plugs into your computer. Dual-Mode capability lets you choose whether to make calls over a standard telephone line or with the Skype application running on your PC. Just select who you want to talk to from your contact list on your Handset, press a button, and get ready to talk. Of course, the Handset supports SkypeOut dialing as well as your Skype contact list. It rings when you have a Skype or SkypeIn call coming in, and shows the Caller ID on the screen. The Handset also supports call waiting and Skype's optional Voicemail service. When you're on a call, you can hit the Mute button for privacy, or use the speakerphone function to let everyone join in. In short, the Linksys Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit allows you to choose to make calls to Skype users or over your existing standard telephone line. You'll get the convenience of a cordless phone and all its features, plus the high-quality voice reception that you get from Skype on your PC, without being tied to your computer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars CIT300, November 27, 2006

By 

B. Budlong - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cisco-LinksysCIT300 Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit (Personal Computers)

I have not been a Skype user for very long, but tired of using an attached headset and not being able to hear calls when not in my office.

The phone works well. Setup was not difficult. Pretty much plug and play.
SkypeOut and SkypeIn function properly. It's nice having my main line and Skype into one phone. Less stuff on the desk. I can easily make calls from either service (skype or main line).

There are a couple issues that I wish were fixed.
1.) The battery will not last overnight if it can not see the base station. So if you turn the computer off or too far away, the battery will drain really fast searching for the base unit. So you NEED to keep the phone on the charger overnight.
2.) All calls must be initiated from the phone and not the computer. So you can't call from the computer and then transfer to the phone. To call someone, you can search the skype contacts on the phone or dial direct. This is a little annoying since my contacts are in Outlook and not skype. So everything needs to be dial directly on the phone.

Another small issue was Linksys's support. The beltclip came cracked. Linksys's support wanted me to return the entire package for exchange. It's a 15 cent plastic part that doesn't effect the use. I don't want to spend $12 in shipping to get a new 15 cent part. They were not very helpful.

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great sound, no Skype/landline call waiting, poor user interface, December 19, 2006

By 

JDM (St. Louis, MO, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cisco-LinksysCIT300 Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit (Personal Computers)

Great sound, small and comfortable to hold.

But a big limitation is that it does not support call waiting / hold between Skype and landline calls, so if you are on the phone and the other type of call comes in, you must immediately hang up on your first call if you want to answer the incoming call on the same handset. It does support call waiting / hold between 2 Skype calls.

The strange menu and command layout seem to have been copied from a feature list with no usability consideration or testing. Here's what's bothered me most so far:

*It requires a tedious sequence of 3-4 key presses to get to the landline phone directory, Yet there are 3 different ways to get to the Skype directory by pressing a single key. Why not distribute those keys among other common functions, instead of having such redundancy / overlap?

* After you make a SkypeOut (i.e. Skype to phone) call from your Skype contact list, the "recently dialed" call list shows only the phone number, not the name of the entry. Not very useful unless you have all your Skypeout phone numbers semi-memorized!

* Likewise, when calling a landline or skypeout number from a directory, the display shows only the number, not the name of the entry.

* When dialing, and also in the recently called list, phone numbers are not formatted (e.g. with dashes) to make them more readable.

* The recently dialed list does not include the time of the call, nor the duration, even though the phone includes a clock and a call timer. (You can go to a different menu (5-6 key presses away), to see the duration of the last call only, or the running totals of all dialled and received calls)

* Landline phone book entry names are at most 10 characters long, forcing constant abbreviation. 16 characters is standard and much more useful. Not quite as bad, but only the first 14 characters of skype directory entries are displayed.

* This is not so unusual, but I'm spoiled: Menu commands do not have numbers by each item, so there are no shortcuts to get to a command, just lots of scrolling through menus and clicking where a single number press should suffice.

* You can't use SkypeOut to dial a number from your landline phone book.

* The following issue is (I think) also present on other brands, but it is still very annoying and unfriendly: even though this phone is connected to a computer (via its base station), you have to populate the landline phone book manually, one entry at a time, using the phone's keypad. You can't compose the phone directory on the PC and download it. (In contrast, the skype directory is maintained on the net and automatically copied from the PC into the phone).

I would hope that Linksys would release a firmware upgrade to correct some of these problems, but instead it looks like they've already released the CIT400 which also has the same lack of call waiting between call types, though the interface looks (from the user guide) like it might be slightly improved.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars voltage needs, May 22, 2008

By 

L. Neff (overseas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cisco-LinksysCIT300 Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit (Personal Computers)

just FYI this product does not allow for 220V if you are trying to buy for overseas.