News

Nostalgia - the Rabbit Phone has a hutch

by Guy Kewney | posted on 17 August 2003

It's been a very long time since I saw a Rabbit online; and it turns out there's still a few of them in use. Here's where they hang out!

The Rabbit phone and base station

A Rabbit was the original digital portable phone. But it was also a non-mobile cellphone, because Hutchison Whampoa set up public access points.

"Rabbit was the baby of Hutchison Whampoa (who later went on to create Orange), and was a CT2 digital cordless phone system which replaced the insecure and out of date CT1 system. 4 companies were given licences to run a national CT2 network :- Hutchison Whampoa (Rabbit), Phonepoint, Mercury Callpoint and Zonephone. The idea was a digital cordless phone that you could use at home, in the office or on the move."

I have one. It was my ambition to connect a set of digital devices to it, and use it as a sort of wireless LAN ... but I could never bring myself to crack open the case!

I was reminded of them because of a special offer in Toys R Us for the Cybiko - a self-organising wireless game playing machine, which links up with any others in the area. Apparently (I haven't been to a store) there's a "buy one, get one free" deal for 30 quid ... nostalgic as seeing Rabbits, for me.