Dual Band router - Interference with 5.8Ghz Cordless Phone

[mogulman]

I was testing out a Netgear WNDR4000 Dual Band Wireless router today and noticed that one of our cordless phones, a Uniden 2-line 5.8Ghz Cordless, sounded really bad.

I was using a 2.4Ghz Router before now, and never noticed this. So I decided to try disabling the 5Ghz Wireless on the Netgear WNDR4000. The Cordless phone then functioned perfectly.

Is this normal? I thought 5ghz was far enough away from 5.8 to not interfere?

I had the 5Ghz Wireless in the Netgear WNDR4000 on channel 161. Is it possible another channel would be better?

 

[mogulman]

Ok.. I tried 149 and it seems better. Hopefully, the frequency hopping that the cordless does won't be a problem but its good for now. I guess I just thought they were different frequencies since they always say 802.11 is 2.4 or 5ghz. I guess its more like 5.x Ghz.

 

[stevech]

I'd suggest you replace the cordless phones with a "DECT" phone. DECT is an international standard, like WiFi. These are in a 1.7GHz band allocated (in the US) to cordless phones alone. The DECT phones work far better than the 5.8GHz phones.

yes, marketing types seem to say 5GHz - but the unlicensed ISM band used by WiFi and MANY other services is in the range of 5.8GHz. There's another less used unlicensed band around 5.4GHz.

Left to their own, I guess they'd say 2GHz, not 2.4GHz.

 

[mogulman]

yeah.. I ended up looking it up...

So the higher end channels for 802.11n in the US, 149-165, correspond with 5.745Ghz-5.825Ghz.

5.8Ghz cordless phones use 5.725-5.850Ghz. So yeah.. there is overlap there. So far 149 seems to be OK with my wifi.

I may end up changing to a DECT 6.0 phone. BTW.. DECT 6.0 is 1.920-1.930Ghz here in the US. or find some older 900Mhz phone

 

[mogulman]

Off to CES.. Maybe I'll find something interesting there.

 

[njweb]

I switched to DECT 6.0 (1.9 GHz) phone technology several years ago for several reasons:

1. I wanted the latest in terms of clarity and range.
2. I wanted to avoid interference with WiFi devices (1.9 GHz has no overlap with Wifi's 2.4 GHz and, more obviously, 5 GHz bands), unlike 5.8 GHZ and 2.4 GHz phones.

 

[stevech]

My error: I said DECT was 1.7GHz - and it's indeed near 1.9GHz.

 

[tipstir]

Yeah DEC phones work nice been using that since my 5.8GHz VECT had died. Extended Range ones from Panasonic works out great with WiFi Routers.

 

[sfx2000]

Count me in with the DECT crowd - not just less interference with the WiFi in 2.4 and 5 gigahertz bands, but also better codecs used between the handset and the base station. Better codecs, better voice quality...

And DECT is fairly smart about adjacent devices... for extension mobiles as well as the neighbors - it's all built into the chipset and protocols - good stuff...

DECT was a candidate for 2G wide area cellular networks before CDMA and GSM dominated from a business perspective

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Enhanced_Cordless_Telecommunications

It's very similar in usage, if not implementation, to Personal Handyphone (PHS) which was big in Asia... I've seen PHS also used in home area cordless...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Handy-phone_System

sfx

 

[mogulman]

I already have another Uniden 2 line DECT phone. Will two DECT phones play well together?

 

[RogerSC]

I have a DECT 6.0 phone with 5 handsets...that works well for me, the range is really good. Not sure how it would work to have two DECT 6.0 base stations where more than one could be in range of a handset. I know that a handset needs to be registered with a base station, so maybe that would take care of that issue...a base station "should" only talk to the handsets that are registered with it.

Interesting question *smile*.