DECT phones - properties of

[DerekW]

Using a set of DECT phones (the portable phone that uses a base station that is plugged into the BT telephone socket) would you expect that if you had answered a phone call on a corded phone (also connected to the same BT line) that you would be able to share in the conversation with a user on a DECT phone with the external caller.

Note BT lines will support up to 5 or so corded phones connected to the line.

Comments please.

[alfbranch]

Re: DECT phones - properties of

You can share with them but how its done varies
You can use many for internal calls too.

[PeterBirder]

Re: DECT phones - properties of

Using a set of DECT phones (the portable phone that uses a base station that is plugged into the BT telephone socket) would you expect that if you had answered a phone call on a corded phone (also connected to the same BT line) that you would be able to share in the conversation with a user on a DECT phone with the external caller.

Note BT lines will support up to 5 or so corded phones connected to the line.

Comments please.

Simple answer is yes.
DECT is just the radio protocol used between the cordless phone and its base station. The base station looks, to the BT line, just like another corded phone with a REN (Ringer Equivalent Number) of 1.

Just to make sure I tried it with my BT Freelance XB2500 cordless phone system and the corded phone I keep as a "standby" in case of power cuts. It works fine in the way you describe.

Regards.

[Guest]

Re: DECT phones - properties of

I think it would only work if you answered the call with the DECT portable phone first and then picked up a corded phone. With my cordless phones I can't pick up the call if it has already been answered though the first person to answer can then include other cordless users in the conversation.
Am assuming that your question implies just a simple corded phone and not a corded phone that's part of the DECT set up (ie a base phone).
I was always under the impression that the limit was the 'ring indicator' - so if you had too many corded phones there wasn't enough power to make any/all of them ring: I used to have one or two that were set to be silent in the days when I was at or exceeding the limit. That may just have been my simple minded view of things though.
If you want lots of phones then the DECT cordless route would take you out of the BT limit and into the cordless manufacturer's limit (if any) as the BT line only knows about the one phone that's actually plugged in.

Does that help any - or was this a trick question that I've missed?

Doug

[DerekW]

Re: DECT phones - properties of

Thank you all for your comments -
The reason I asked was that I have just bought a super sexy looking set of DECT phones that do not do that, the stupid DECT phone does not want to play nicely with a call that is operating on the corded phone. The previous DECT phone I had was a set of 11 year old BT labelled phones that were loosing the display but they worked correctly ie would work with an existing connected call.

The reason I bought them was that the new ones copy the numbers from one handset to another in a simple operation instead of having to type the numbers into each hand set.

I rang the new phones manufacturers help desk to day to see what I was doing wrong and was told in a very Germanic way that this how they are supposed to work.

So yet another difference between the EU and GB.

Oh! the make of these alien unfriendly phones - Gigabit

[Guest]

Re: DECT phones - properties of

Welcome to the 21st century - sorry but your BT ones were clearly 20th century design - and British at that!

Some lateral thinking- this kind of assumes that the new phones are where you most want to have them and that the corded is less used:
Does your new phone include an answering machine? What happens if you let the answering machine pick up the call and then you lift up the corded phone? (When this happens, we just tell the caller to wait till our outgoing message is finished).
Alternatively, some extra cordless handsets from the same manufacturer to replace the corded?

Doug

[PeterBirder]

Re: DECT phones - properties of

So yet another difference between the EU and GB.

Oh! the make of these alien unfriendly phones - Gigabit

Or another reason to leave the EU.

"Vorsprung durch technik" rather than "If it aint broke, dont fix it".