Walking across the river this afternoon in central London. Thinking of home, missing the wife and kids. Have been on the road too much in the last month or two, and too much travel in prospect too.

So I want to call Dr Mrs G to pass on my heart's desires etc. Problem is, the younger daughter tends to sleep at various slightly random times. Too often I've called just as the little madam was falling asleep on mama's shoulder, and ruined the whole afternoon for my wife who then has a grumpy, sleepy baby who will whine all afternoon.

So what I want to be able to do is make the phone flash gently, or solicit an outbound call. No ringing!

You can't do this on the PSTN. Sure, you could have handsets that have custom rings per caller based on the caller ID. But I want control per call over the ring at the other end, and it doesn't support that feature.