Before the mobile telephone but long after smoke signals, there were cordless telephones, a land line with a cord free handheld handset. Cordless telephone communications are conducted via radio waves passed between the base and the handset. Communications between these two (the base station and handset) is sometimes limited, complete signal loss between the different floors of a place would not be so bizarre.
The base station itself is connected to a fixed phone line like standard telephones and draws power from a wall outlet. It is this base station that continues to differentiate between a cordless telephone and cell phones (which do not need a base station), no matter the great technological increases of cordless telephone units. Today one can even find some cell phone-like features offered by corldess telephones.
While they have certainly come a long way, when cordless telephones were introduced to the market the devices were not very reliable and rather expensive. Not only was the operational range extremely limited and the audio quality deplorable, but there was practically no security or privacy because signals could be easily intercepted by other cordless telephones in the area thanks to the limited range of available channels. It took about 10 and a half years for cordless telephones to become familiar household items, thanks to the opening up of the frequency range to 9 hundred megahertz with the arrival of DSS technology.
These two technical innovations resolved the matter of eavesdropping, allowing cordless telephones to take off as favored products. Though cellular telephones are pervasive and here for good, many still keep landlines in their houses for a number of reasons, and cordless telephones remain a viable market, with new models introduced fairly frequently. When selecting a cordless telephone, it is important to keep in mind security issues, for these phones are really just radio transmitters and thus susceptible to eavesdropping, though that does require a reasonably high level of technical know-how nowadays to do so successfully. In this respect make sure to choose DSS technology, at the 2.4 gigahertz frequency at a minimum (less than that is less secure while any more impinges on battery lifespan ).
This brings us to the sole other major issue : battery life-span. Avoid nickel-cadium if at all possible ; they depend on a memory effect whereby such batteries must be fully drained before recharging. Aside from these two concerns, a cordless telephone’s other characteristics are simply matters of personal taste.
