This article uses findings from a close study of eleven people’s telecommunications uses at home and a national survey to argue for the importance of technology development which is based on people’s demonstrated uses and interests. Values about privacy at home and practices of controlling phone intrusion were shown to be related to choice of future technologies. Those who wanted to be accessible to callers chose services which enhanced communication such as video phones whereas those who wanted to control incoming calls chose services such as ‘intelligent’ phones. The study illustrates the contribution of ethnographic approaches and criticises research based on economic models and quantification alone.