Bells Are Ringing: Dial Convenience : Consumers: Last year, 28 million telephones were sold. An increasingly larger share of that market is going to phones that offer new handy features.

Phones in the 1980s are a far cry from the basic black boxes of yesteryear.

Once considered little more than a mouthpiece for keeping in touch with friends and relatives, phones today are feature-rich, indispensable tools for making work and play easier, homes safer and communications faster, industry experts say.

Along with that added convenience has come greater freedom--to pick and choose whom we talk with, when we talk to them, and where.

“Convenience is what it’s all about,” observed Vickie Matus, a researcher with LINK Resources, a New York consulting firm.

That was the idea American Telephone & Telegraph Co. apparently had in mind when it introduced its Trimline telephone in 1964.

That phone, which recently celebrated its 25th birthday, was considered revolutionary for its day because of its sleek, one-piece styling and dial that was built into the handset. The unique design gave users new dialing freedom.

Twenty-five years later, convenience is still a good selling point for phones, as evidenced by the rise of the cordless phone and the answering machine for the home market.

Until just a few years ago, they were almost considered to be in the same category as mood rings and Pet Rocks--novelty items.

Today, these two categories of phone equipment represent the fastest-growing segment of the industry, according to LINK. One out of every three U.S. households today has an answering machine, a 50% jump over just two years ago, a recent LINK survey showed. The same survey showed that one-third of households with answering machines use them to screen calls.

“Telephones which offer convenience and productivity features are capturing an increasingly larger share of dollars spent for phone sets,” Matus said.

Likewise, cordless phones, once considered “hobby” phones for use on the porch or around the pool, are fast displacing corded models as the phone of choice in households nationwide, figures show. Since 1987, the number of cordless phones has doubled, from 4 million to 8 million units, the LINK study showed.

Meanwhile, sales of traditional corded phones that offer no additional features have steadily dropped, according to the LINK survey.

Indeed, feature-rich phones will likely be a hot property into the ‘90s, predicted Rich Tilden, product manager for AT&T;’s residential phone division. “Customers are demanding more and more features,” he said.

Unlike their telephonic ancestors, today’s phones can do much more than just transmit voices over telephone lines.

Some models can page their owners at another location or speed-dial frequently called telephone numbers. With more and more households of two-earner couples and busy families on the run, that adds up to a lot of convenience for users, Tilden said.

“People don’t like being interrupted by the phone and they don’t want to run for the phone,” he said.

Popular features on phones today include “redial,” a capability that allows users to hit a single button to redial a busy number without having to punch in all seven digits by hand; “memory,” a feature that permits users to program their phones so they can dial frequently called numbers by punching just one or two buttons; and “hold,” a capability that allows users to put callers on hold while they summon another family member or take another call.

Emerging features for phones in the ‘90s include two-line phones for the home that permit one phone line to act as two, speaker phones for the home and combination phone-answering machine units, he said.

According to AT&T;, a provider of phone equipment for more than a century, demand for home phone equipment has translated into a burgeoning market for manufacturers in the free-for-all of the U.S. telecommunications industry.

Last year, consumers snapped up 28 million phones, and steady sales increases are expected, industry figures show. That would include purchases of all types of residential phones, from standard desktop models and portables to specialty phones in shapes from Mickey Mouse to mounted trout.

Not only are consumers buying more phones, but they’re installing more lines in their homes, as well, to accommodate those purchases.

In 1987, only 8.7% of households reported having two or more phone lines. In the most recent survey, that figure had risen to 9.4%, LINK said.

According to the survey, the biggest reasons for installing extra lines in the home were to meet business needs (38.2%), children’s use (29.4%), data use (5.6%), emergency use (2.5%) and security (2.1%).

The Trimline phone, a perennial favorite since its introduction 25 years ago, continues to account for about one-third of all sales of corded phones. But there are literally hundreds of phone styles available, from the functional to the bizarre.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the original rotary dial phone. AT&T; stopped making basic black rotary phones several years ago, though refurbished models can still be purchased at AT&T; phone stores, AT&T;’s Tilden noted.