How To Avoid Frustration with Cordless Phones + VoIP

Have you experienced difficulties with your cordless phone?  

Who was your carrier?  Was it Time Warner?  Comcast?  Vonage?  AT&T U-verse?  Verizon FiOS?

Numerous articles have been written on cordless phones and their use on VoIP.

We have long warned about the use of cordless phones on any network regardless of whether they are analog or VoIP here at AudioAcrobat.

Cordless phones have a short life-span and many are made by manufacturers with low regard for quality.  Cordless phones are the main culprits for emitting false tones (DTMF Passthrough) resulting in poor connections and misdialed numbers.  Cordless phone bases are also sensitive to cell phone calls or outside radio/microwave interference.

Common results of using cordless phones are as follows:

1. Invalid PIN entries
2. Busy Signals
3. Dropped Calls
4. Echo
5. Line Static
6. Line Silence

OK, enough with the scare tactics.  Here is some raw, hard evidence in by way of several collected articles from reputable sources, which make for an exceptional read, each in their own right.

Notice how the issues are many, and varied, with cordless phones?  This is not by coincidence.

A) VoIP Mechanic – “If you are using a cordless phone try to replace it with a corded phone (connected directly to the IAD) and see if the echo stops.”

B) Vonage Users – “…remember that a 2.4GHz cordless phone too near your router will interfere with your Wi-Fi network.”

C) Reliable Cordless Phones and VoIP on Naked ADSL – This article bears witness to a user taking 12 months to troubleshoot problems before he found a reliable solution.  (Not worth the hassle for most of us.)

The problems ranged from:

1. Failure to ring
2. Low Volume
3. Dropped calls mid call
4. One way voice
5. Poor call quality

D) How to Use Cordless Phone with VoIP – Close inspection of this article will reveal that it was not titled properly.  It should read, “Beware Of Using A Cordless Phone with VoIP.”

“Moreover, a cordless phone does not work with every VoIP service.”  

“Cordless phones usually have a short life. Batteries are another problem.”

E) Problems Using Standard Cordless Phones with VoIP Service – The essence of this cached article is to point out that some cordless phones can be problematic.

“You may, however, experience some problems when using a standard cordless phone with VoIP telephone service.”

F) Uniden cordless phones, Verizon Home Service, and menu systems issue – Here is a dialog of a user struggling to make a password work.

“So I finally managed to reset the voicemail password today. I immediately called back into it to test.  From one Uniden handset (the one that’s tied to our answering machine base), Verizon complained about the password being bad… on SEVERAL / ALL attempts. I went upstairs and tried another handset.  It failed the first three times, but magically finally WORKED the fourth time.”

Note: (And, of course, an attempt to call into that line’s voicemail from my cell phone worked first time.) But now it seems like I can’t trust using my home phone line to call into anybody’s menuing system.  It’s like, the other systems don’t recognize the tones correctly ?!?!”

Bottom Line: Keep the hair on your head and avoid using a Cordless Phone whenever possible.  We know…We know…you have had good luck using them.  That is the point: It was luck.

Did you learn something new about your cordless phone or connection in the above post or linked resources?

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