This post brought to you by Advanced American Telephones. All opinions are 100% mine.
Although people seem to be moving away from landline phones these days, there are still millions of people that haven't ditched their analog phones in favor of only using a cell phone. The AT&T branded CLP99383 features Connect to Cell Bluetooth technology that enables you to make and receive up to two cellular calls and one landline call at the same time through the same system. Combining your landline and two cellphones gives you the best of both worlds. Let's take a closer look.
Note: Images can be clicked to view a larger size.
The AT&T CLP99383 includes a base station with an answering machine. The base has one handset and there are two more wireless handsets included with the system. The base station can support up to 12 standalone handsets, which only require an AC outlet to hook up their small charging cradles. The base station requires a landline phone connection, but each of the handsets do not. 
You might have a phone system that looks similar to this one in your house right now. The AT&T CLP99383 can do all the same things as your current system. It can make and receive calls, record messages when you're not there to answer calls and act like an intercom system so that you can talk between handsets without requiring an outside call. Those are all normal features that you would expect. But the CLP99383 can do a lot more once you pair up to 2 cellphones to the base station via Bluetooth.
Almost every call we make with our landline is a long distance call because we live across the county line. Even though we each have a cell phone, it just never seems to be convenient to use it because we spend most of our time in the basement where the reception is weak. As a result, we always end up placing calls with the landline and racking up extra monthly charges. With the CLP99383, that's no longer a problem. We just pair our phones (my Samsung Galaxy S3 and Jeanne's little LG non-smartphone) with the base station and leave those phones upstairs where the reception is fine. When a call comes in to either mobile phone, the CLP99383 handsets ring and we answer the call just like we would a landline call. You can even customize the ring tone so that each paired cell phone has its own ring tone which can be different from the landline ring tone. 
Using the CLP99383 has helped me out with Gadgeteer business calls. My home office is in the basement, where the reception is weak. Business phone calls would always cause me to go running up the stairs to make sure the call didn't drop before I answered it. Now I can stay in the basement and not have to worry about that.
The CLP99383 doesn't just allow you to answer incoming cell calls, it also let's you make outgoing cell calls through the handset. And, if you have an Android smartphone, you can install the Connect to Cell app, which will let you set different notifications to alert you through the CLP99383's handsets.
This is really handy if you need to leave your paired phones in another room. Once this is setup, you won't miss incoming messages and alerts. Each handset beeps and displays which kind of message was received. You can also receive calendar reminders through the system. You can't read the messages through the handsets, but just knowing one came in is a nice feature.
The app will also allow you to view the phone log of incoming and outgoing calls. This only works when you're within range of the CLP99383 though.
Another nice feature of this phone system is the built-in USB connector on the side of the base station that you can use to charge a mobile device.
If you're still rocking a landline phone and also have cellphones, the AT&T CLP99383 is a feature packed phone system that lets you enjoy the best of both worlds.
Product Information
| Price: | $119.95 |
| Manufacturer: | AT&T |
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I use my Panasonic one like this for the same reason (basement = bad reception, plus unlike some people, I hate having my phone with me 24/7), but it does NOT require a land line. Julie, are you sure it requires one?
But the one I have, doesn’t do alerts. (I think the new Panasonic does) (to get around this, I just copy all texts to email, and set texts alerts for everything in my calender. I love smart phones)
The one wish I had for mine is to use all 3 “phone connections” 2 cells and land line) at the same time. It looks like this one will allow that. (The new Panasonic does NOT, from what I read)
I’ve also had a few issues with downloading phone books. Julie, did you copy yours, and make sure all of them were copied???
Oh cool, they also sell a DECT headset!
@David I haven’t tried unplugging the landline, but I’m guessing it will work fine. I did try importing the phone numbers from my smartphone. It worked fine except that it copies all the numbers instead of letting you pick and choose. So after it imported about 100 numbers, I had to manually delete a about 90 of them that I’ll never use. Argh…
I have the Panasonic one as well, It does not require a land-line, We use ours all the time. 2 Cell phone paired, and a land line who’s only purpose is to piss me off during dinner. But Government requires we have one for fostering.
I ended up supplementing my Panasonic version of this with Ooma (and keeping my landline number) because I found Bluetooth to Bluetooth calls on mine were horrible. Couldn’t understand either end. It’s working out much better for me.
I have the panasonic version of this, and had the AT&T one prior. I think definitely the panasonic has better sound quality than the AT&T ones. Also, not sure if it works here, but the panny allows the cell phones custom ringtones to ring through the cordless phones handset, which is nice for continuity of setup on the cell phones.
@Pam T. What’s Ooma?
I had one of these a long (5+ years) time ago and found the “reception” when I was talking on the cell line to be hollow and faint. Is Ooma something that would improve that?
@Julie I hate the reception of cell phones to begin with. Does this arrangement make it worse?
I need a new phone system and am interested in this if it works better than the ancient model.
@Sandee this phone system won’t improve your cell phone’s reception if it is already poor. But if you have good reception where you place the base station, you can leave your cell phone(s) in that same spot and then talk on the separate handsets all over your house (as long as you don’t have a 30,000 sq ft house or something 😉 I found the audio quality to be fine with mine.
@Sandee Cohen Ooma is a VOIP (Voice Over IP) system similar to Vonage. Your cell receptions should not get worse but these systems do not improve them. We had an older device used to route cell phone calls over our hard wired phone lines and it was terrible. We currently have an older model (1 year old) Panasonic system that works great, but I am in the process of reviewing one of their newer versions.
The sound quality is fine for phone calls, I don’t have any problem, but I certainly won’t be listening to “Journeys greatest hits” through it.
My only comment about the sounds quality was a comparisson. The AT&T was a bit thin and tiny and as one moved around the house the quality went a bit scratchy. My experience with the panasonic was just a solid, rich and un-interupted sound experience.
As for “reception” on the cell side, the opportunity here is to be able to keep a cell phone in a primary location where the reception is BEST, for me I simply put them next to our M-Cell (picocell/femtocell device for AT&T) and then the phone just connects via bluetooth to the base, and with 5 bars the reception issue is eliminated. We’ve all got parts of our homes/locations where the the reception is stronger.
Does anyone know if / when someone calls my cellular phone that is paired , am I able to answer using my land line.