Wireless Home Networking - Index of

Chapter 13: Using Your Wireless Network for Phone Calls
An alternative to Wi-Fi phones
Wi-Fi, in its current form of 802.11g and draft 802.11n, is a wireless system
that has not been designed for small, battery-powered devices. The problem
is simply that Wi-Fi was never designed with power saving features that can
extend battery life on these portable devices (though some manufacturers
have created their own battery saving schemes, and we expect that the final
802.11n standard will include more advanced power management as well).
What this means is that many Wi-Fi VoIP phones are limited to just a few
hours of talk time and less than a day of standby time, so you’ll have to
charge your phone daily, if not more often.
An alternative to Wi-Fi VoIP phone systems is a new (to North America)
cordless phone system called DECT 6.0. DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless
Telecommunications) has been around in Europe and other parts of the
world for about a decade but was not available in the U.S. until the FCC
approved its use in late 2005. (The phones became available in the U.S. the
following year.) DECT uses the 1900 MHz frequency range, which keeps it out
of the way of both 2.4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi frequencies. DECT phones are known
for their long range (compared to traditional cordless phones), their highquality
voice reproduction, and the fact that you can have repeaters to daisy
chain DECT calls over distances (such as from one side of your home to the
other).
For the most part, DECT phones are just regular old cordless phones, using
the DECT system for transmission between the handset and the base station
(the base station is then plugged directly into a POTS jack). Using an analog
telephone adapter in lieu of a POTS jack is a great way to wirelessly expand a
VoIP system, and is the fastest and cheapest way to take your VoIP wireless.
You can use any cordless phone — even that ancient one you have out in the
garage with the 4-foot-long shiny retractable antenna — with your analog
telephone adapter (ATA). That’s the point of an ATA — any analog phone can
plug into it. We’re focusing on the new (to the U.S. at least) DECT phones
because, frankly, we think they work better than old-fashioned cordless
phones and also because several models have VoIP built right into the phone
and don’t need an ATA. How good is DECT? Well in Danny’s home in Maine
(with its 3-foot-thick brick and masonry walls that kill just about any wireless
signal), he can reach every point from the basement to the third floor with
his DECT phone. All of Danny’s other wireless systems require repeaters and
signal boosters and secondary base stations to reach through his wireless
worst-case-scenario house!
Several manufacturers of DECT phones have begun selling phones that have
both POTS and VoIP phone capabilities built into a single device. These phones
have two connectors on the handset’s base station. One plugs into a regular
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