Consumer Reports - wireless phones It is easier than ever to have a phone where you want. The new breed of wireless phones allows you to place a camera in any room of the house even if no phone jack is located nearby.
However, manufacturers still offer an incredible number of phones: cheaper models that offer the basics, multi-handsets, phones, fully equipped with a built-in answering machine, a single line and two line phones, digital phones and analog and the different frequency bands. In many cases, a phone will have a sibling phone-answering machine. Many telephone-answering machines are available in a version of phone only. If you have a cordless phone for several years, it's probably a 900-MHz phone. newer phones use higher frequencies, namely 2.4 or 5.8 GHz. They are not necessarily better than older, but they can provide more security and calls for a broader range of capabilities and useful features.
What is available
AT & T, Bell South, GE, Panasonic, Uniden, VTech and has more than 70 percent of the market. VTech owns AT & T Consumer Products Division and now makes phones under the AT & T and its own name.
The current trends include phones that support two or more handsets with basic, cheaper phones and 2.4 analog 5.8 GHz, and feature-rich 2.4 and 5.8 GHz digital phones. Some of the multi-handset compatible phones now include an additional handset with a charger. Approximately one third of wireless phones sold include a digital answering machine.
A main distinction between wireless phones is how they transmit their signals. Here are some words that you see when you buy and what they mean to you:
Analog. These phones are the cheapest available now. They tend to have the best voice quality and range enough to let you chat anywhere in your house and yard, or even slightly beyond. They are also likely to cause interference with other wireless products. But analog transmission is not very sure anyone with a scanner or comparable RF wireless device may be able to listen in. Analog phones are also more likely than digital phones suffer occasional static interference and RF from other wireless products. Price: $ 15 to $ 100.
Digital. They offer about the same as analog phones, but with better security and less susceptibility to RF interference. And, as analogous, they are unlikely to cause interference with other wireless products. Price: $ 50 to $ 130.
Digital Spread Spectrum (DSS). A phone call to a DSS distributes through a number of frequencies, providing an extra measure of security and greater immunity against RF interference. The range may be slightly better than analog phones or digital media. Note that some phones DSS - usually in the 2.4 GHz or multi-handset phones compatible with the capacity to talk from handset to handset - using such a wide swath of spectrum, even in standby they may interfere with the monitors babies and other wireless products operating in the same frequency band. Price: $ 75 to $ 225 (for multiple systems combined).
Frequency. cordless phones use one or two of the three frequency bands:
* 900-MHz. Some manufacturers are still cheap, 900-MHz phones, usually analog. They are fine for many households, and continue to represent approximately one quarter of the market.
* 2.4 GHz. The group most phones now use. Unfortunately, baby monitors many other wireless products - from wireless computer networks, security monitors, wireless speakers, microwave ovens - use the same band. A 2.4 GHz analog phone is inherently sensitive to RF interference from other wireless devices and phones 2.4GHz DSS can cause interference in other products. However, phones DSS presented as "802.11-friendly" are unlikely to interfere with wireless computer networks.
Posted on July 26, 2010.
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