Before the mobile telephone but long after smoke signals, there were cordless telephones, a land line with a cord free handset. Cordless telephone conversations are made over radio waves transmitted between the phone’s base and the cordless 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 distinguish a cordless telephone from cellphones (which require no base station), regardless of the much increased technology of cordless phone units. These days one may can even find some cell phone-like features in corldess phones.
While they have certainly come a long way, in the beginning when cordless telephones first appeared on the market the devices were unreliable and rather expensive. Not only was the operational range rather limited with poor quality sound, but there was no real security or privacy because signals could be easily intercepted by other cordless telephones in the area due to the limited range of channels available. 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 2 technical inventions took care of eavesdropping fears and cordless telephones took off as favored products. Though cellular telephones are ubiquitous and here to stay, enough still keep landlines in their houses so that cordless telephones remain a profitable business, with new models introduced reasonably 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 regard, be certain to choose DSS technology, at the 2.4 gigahertz frequency at a minimum ( less is less secure while more cuts into 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. Apart from these two issues, the rest of a cordless telephone’s features are completely up to personal taste.