Yesterday I saw a guy walking down the street talking on what looked like a corded office phone, he even hung it up while walking.
Uh first of whut, and where can I order this impractical device?
Our office uses Lync phones (compatible to Microsoft Lync, a messaging system).
They can be connected to our LAN in office, or via WiFi when elsewhere, IE when working at home.
I wouldn’t normally use it while walking down the street, but it would work.
There are probably other vendors of these systems.
Just recalled, before the Lync system phones we used Cisco IP phones. So yeah there are others.
Both phones just look like ordinary desktop phones. They are Voice Over IP phones, so no phone line.
Yup just like that, I assume a battery is in the base?
By corded I meant between the handset and the base, not corded as in a phone line.
Is this what you’re thinking of? It’s a Bluetooth handset designed to look like the handset from an old Bell Systems 300 series desk phone.
Was it something like this? (Or, from other sources, this?)
Or, if it had a wire, maybe this?
We genuine greybeards find the youthful ironic wannabe geezers to be distasteful poseurs. When we use a corded handset, it’s attached to a corded base attached to a landline. 
No, there was a physical wire between the handset and the phone base.
Imagine someone picked up an office phone, unplugged the power cord and phone line, and then walked around on it making calls.
EDIT: like this:
http://www.videoconferencingsupply.com/Polycom-CX600-p/2200-15987-025.htm
It was NOT just a handset.
Wow. Gotta respect the commitment to the oldcore irony. :rolleyes:
Could have been a D.I.Y. job. Gut an office phone, stick in a cell phone, rewire the handset to plug into the 3.5mm jack (add buttons for volume etc.).
If it really was D.I.Y., hats off on the effort. And it’s a good visual joke, but not very subtle; pushes right past ironic into dopey.
Right, that Polycom Lync Phone is pretty much what I have on my desk.
Despite looking exactly like a desktop phone that would be normally attached to a landline, it is an IP phone and can work wirelessly.
Yup you got it in one most likely, but damn those phones are expensive!
A few years back there was a company selling videophones up here through some MLM scheme. The phones looked like office phones with a large-ish screen, were battery-operated and had some sort of cellular connection.
I remember having lunch in a restaurant when this lady came in, sat alone at her table, took out her phone from its (cardboard) box, deployed it on the table in front of her so the camera would point at her, had lunch for half an hour (without using the phone), then put it back in its box and walked out. I guess she was just using it as an obtrusive cell phone.
ETA: This was maybe 5 years ago, before widespread use of Skype video and Facetime.
How do you know he was talking to someone else?
Yes, I think maybe Bob from Accounting has finally cracked.
These two facts are not guaranteed to both be true.
An IP device may work wirelessly, by wi-fi or other RF transport layer, but not every IP device can work wirelessly.
Looking at the current specsheets for Polycom telephones, there’s no mention of wi-fi. Network connectivity appears to uniformly be 1000base-TX wired connections.
Let alone power; none of the phones I see seem to have integral battery capability, and need their power bricks to work, or power over ethernet (still a wire).
If you can find a specific cite supporting your assertion, I’m sure we’d all welcome it, since it would be a definitive answer to what OP saw.
Spark Fun Electronics sold this for a while: Portable Rotary Phone - Black - POR-00286 - SparkFun Electronics
No reason why someone couldn’t have done the same thing with a slightly newer phone shell.
I said AND because the ones our company uses can do both. I do not have the model pictured, but the one I have is a Polycom and is similar looking.
I have used it both on our company LAN, and wirelessly from home (wifi, not cell).
Note the call quality is MUCH better on the LAN.