Seeking Wifi (802.11a/b/g) friendly cordless phones

January 22, 2007 12:44 PM

Can anyone recommend a cordless phone that won't interfere with 802.11b/g and is maybe even 802.11a friendly?

I'm setting up wifi for my mother's house, but her existing cordless phone (Digital 2.4ghz) killed all wifi in the house when in use (and the wifi disrupted the phone too). I figured moving the phone to 5ghz (bought a Uniden 5ghz digital phone) and seperating each on to seperate bands would help, it helped the wifi, but the Uniden seems to be incapable of operating more than 5ft away from the base without static. After returning the POS uniden, what should I get?

Would I better off in a band different band besides the 2.4ghz that 802.11b/g uses (47mhz, 900mhz, 5ghz) or getting a 2.4ghz handset compatible with Wifi? No one seems to make any not super cheapo (vtech) 47mhz or 900mhz phones anymore, might that mean those bands are likely less crowded than 2.4ghz?

I'd also like to be a good neighbor and not just pollute the 5ghz band too. Are there any 802.11a friendly cordless phones? Do certain phones play better with other phones? Does it matter?

Background: she lives a house in a residential neighborhood, not in an apartment so there shouldn't be too much signal bleed from the neightbors.

Can anyone recommend handsets that they use simultaneously alongside wifi without headache? I'm looking for something in the sub $150 range.

posted by notpeter to technology (13 comments total)

I have a panasonic 5GHz that works great and plays nicely with my WiFi
posted by Thrillhouse at 12:54 PM on January 22, 2007

I also have a 5.8 GHz Panasonic. Good phone, no wifi problems. And is anyone out there actually using 802.11a?

As far as I can tell, the 900-MHz band has been pretty much abandoned.
posted by adamrice at 12:59 PM on January 22, 2007

I third the suggestion of a 5.8 GHz phone. I have a Uniden system that supports up to ten handsets. It works great.
posted by brianogilvie at 1:06 PM on January 22, 2007

Sorry, I hit "post comment" too soon. I meant to add that the problem with the Uniden phone might be the particular unit, since my system works fine. I have the TRU 8885-2 digital model. I think the kit with base and two handsets (one for the base, one remote) cost around $150.
posted by brianogilvie at 1:11 PM on January 22, 2007

5.8 GHz Panasonic. Found a guy on eBay who had a 3-phone setup (with the color screen on the handsets) for $150.

However, the 2.4 GHz Panasonics also work pretty well with WiFi -- since they randomly hop from channel to channel, they are only interfering with your WiFi for a fraction of a second at a time. You'll get reduced bandwidth, but the wireless will still work.
posted by kindall at 1:40 PM on January 22, 2007

We have four Panasonic 2.4GHz phones in the house (one even sits right next to the Linksys wireless router) and have absolutely zero issues with interference for either the phone or the network.
posted by daveleck at 2:57 PM on January 22, 2007

It's not true that you can't get the cheap 900MHz phones anymore. Try this one, see also here, and a recommendation of it on BoingBoing from 2005.
posted by Araucaria at 3:05 PM on January 22, 2007

I have a 5.8ghz Panasonic and it gives me trouble with the WIFI of my neighbors. Never had this problem at my previous two residences. The unit has two handsets and both have trouble.

Mine's a KX-TG5432.
posted by dobbs at 4:03 PM on January 22, 2007

We just got a set of three Uniden 2.4 GHz phones from Costco ($70) and we've had no problems at all with our much-used wifi. Good phones too, better than I'd expected.
posted by anadem at 5:54 PM on January 22, 2007

Don 't worry about "802.11a friendly". What you really want is "802.11n friendly"

802.11n, the "nextgen" or WiFi, is both 2.4 ghz and 5.x ghz (not sure if it's 5.3 or 5.8ghz or maybe even both, wikipedia is not helping since it only says "2.4 and 5ghz")

So I would say go for the 900mhz models, especially ones that do DHSS.
p.s.- Also, here is a link that may be of interest:
posted by crazyray at 9:04 PM on January 22, 2007

I 23rd the Panasonic. We have a KX-TGA542M. The base station sits literally six inches away from the wireless access point and we never, ever have a problem.
posted by lhauser at 9:25 PM on January 22, 2007

Got this out-of-band via email from 'adam gifford'
"""
I dont have a askmefi account, or the paypal to join, so heres the answer.

You want a DECT 6.0 phone, they run in the ~1900mhz band, away from
802.11b & 802.11a.


random links:
GE DECT 6 phones:
http://www.home-electronics.net/en-us/ModelList.html?Cat=Dect6.0
DECT Forum press release:
http://www.dect.org/content.aspx?newsartikel=news15
Phillips phones:
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-Cordless-Answering-Dect2252g-37/dp/B000G0OQD6/sr=8-1/qid=1169506062/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-0174660-1954002?ie=UTF8&s=electronics
"""

this seems to be totally what I'm looking for. Does anyone have experiences with DECT phones?
posted by notpeter at 8:28 AM on January 23, 2007

notpeter, we have a pair of the Phillips DECT phones, and they work fine for us, except that after a recent power outage, the answering machine unit was busted when the power came back, and so that part no longer works. Phones are still fine. I've had them about 4-5 months.
posted by fings at 2:55 PM on January 23, 2007