Spec me a cordless home phone

Gtiracer · 3 Apr 2022 at 22:22

Looking for a specific type of cordless home phone as mine has given up after 7 years.

It needs to have 2 handsets and be able to listen to the messages on the handset as opposed to needing to use the base as the main base will have to be in another room downstairs and the phone will mainly be used in a different room that doesn't have a phone socket.

Any suggestions welcome

Thanks

DataVampire · 3 Apr 2022 at 23:09

Gtiracer said:
Looking for a specific type of cordless home phone as mine has given up after 7 years.

It needs to have 2 handsets and be able to listen to the messages on the handset as opposed to needing to use the base as the main base will have to be in another room downstairs and the phone will mainly be used in a different room that doesn't have a phone socket.

Any suggestions welcome

Thanks

Is it really wise buying one of those types of phones when the local exchanges are being closed and its going to voip phones.

Malevolence · 3 Apr 2022 at 23:22

DataVampire said:
Is it really wise buying one of those types of phones when the local exchanges are being closed and its going to voip phones.

Who says local exchanges are being turned off? And if that were true, what about those of us who need a phone line to access the internet? What do we do?

drakulton · 3 Apr 2022 at 23:35

Malevolence said:
Who says local exchanges are being turned off? And if that were true, what about those of us who need a phone line to access the internet? What do we do?

It's happening, so basically..... you're fooked

Orcvader · 4 Apr 2022 at 10:21

Malevolence said:
Who says local exchanges are being turned off? And if that were true, what about those of us who need a phone line to access the internet? What do we do?

Openreach themselves did. They have already migrated some areas, and the goal is to have everyone move to VOIP by 2025: https://www.openreach.com/upgrading-the-UK-to-digital-phone-lines

Although they did slow down the rollout due to the recent storms showing a few weak points with VOIP only: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.p...-voice-rollout-after-consumer-complaints.html

Internet will still work on phone lines. The equipment dealing with internet is separate from the equipment dealing with analogue phones, even though they share the same line. It just means those phone lines will be purely internet.

Gtiracer · 4 Apr 2022 at 13:36

I equally didn't know about this. I'll have to do more research bit in the meantime I will still need a way of contacting people over landline. Are all business going to be expected to remove their landline numbers and change signage?

Slackworth · 4 Apr 2022 at 14:18

There's a lot of different options for businesses - the office for the company I work for put in BT OnePhone last year - it's for 5+ users so may not be suitable for you but all users have either software on their computer or mobiles instead of landline phones but these can show the mobile number, a landline/business number or internal extensions depending on how you configure it on the portal. It's got full cloud management and not all that expensive if it fits your needs. Longer term it's these cloud platforms which I guess will take over.

Going back to the original question - I'd recommend the BT range of handsets - the 8610 we have has been great - they don't make it anymore but they have the Premium range which look to be fairly similar.

My original thoughts around the PSTN switch off is that you could still plug a DECT type phone into your router for VoIP once you're switched over but maybe that's not the case.

iamtheoneneo · 4 Apr 2022 at 14:19

Gtiracer said:
Are all business going to be expected to remove their landline numbers and change signage?

No because in most cases the number does not change, when our work (1000+ staff) made the switch we all had the same number.

Gtiracer · 5 Apr 2022 at 01:05

iamtheoneneo said:
No because in most cases the number does not change, when our work (1000+ staff) made the switch we all had the same number.

Oh, guess I need to learn more about it then

agw_01 · 5 Apr 2022 at 02:21

drakulton said:
It's happening, so basically..... you're fooked

Alright captain scaremonger. Instead of causing unnecessary worry by saying "it's all going off, tough ****", why not actually explain what's happening. Which is, the analogue PSTN service is being switched off. The existing copper phone cables will still be used to carry the broadband signals to the premises, but it'll use a purely digital SOGEA network instead. The telephone exchanges will still be required to act as a distribution point to the street cabs.

Realistically, despite all of this change in the backend infrastructure, there's very little difference to the end user. You will still be able to take the same VDSL router you use today and plug it into a traditional phone socket to get your broadband. The line will just be devoid of any analogue phone service.

Gtiracer said:
I equally didn't know about this. I'll have to do more research bit in the meantime I will still need a way of contacting people over landline. Are all business going to be expected to remove their landline numbers and change signage?

Most things are moving over to SIP. There are plenty of SIP providers available and you should be able to port your existing landline number over to a SIP provider. A VoIP phone will connect into your router to allow you to make and recieve calls just as you would over a traditional PSTN service.

The only real issue with this is the reliance on having a working broadband connection to be able to use the phone. If there's no broadband connection, you won't have any voice traffic either. You'll also lose the ability to use a fixed phone during a power outage, unless the phone and router are powered by a battery backup.

lsg1r · 12 Apr 2022 at 21:25

Bit late to the party here...
There's a fairly simple solution to the requirements that @Gtiracer needs too because I'm basically already doing it

.

I have a Siemens Gigaset n300 (think it's been updated to n300a or n510 now) which is able to do both landline and voip (using it with sipgate for my business and hopefully bt 'voip' future proof). It's connected to 4 different siemens dect phones with only 3 getting voip calls (it can be done in settings) but all getting land line. Multiple answer machines (voip/landline) can be heard via the phones.

In my case the n300 is under the stairs in the 'internet cubby hole' with the phone socket and the phones are dotted around the house as needed.

Just need to pick a siemens ~~phone~~ handset that has all the features you want etc and make sure it's compatible with the base station.

Edit: as to the bt change, as far as I'm aware the plan is a small adapter box (basically a 'voip' to landline adapter) and maybe a small ups (for 999 etc) but things could change. Numbers should not change though.

Just had a thought on the original issue, you could also maybe look at a fritzbox with built in dect as an alternative too.