How long do cordless phone sets last?

[ea56]

Tom,

I’m so glad this ordeal is over with for you!  Sounds like the wire outside may have been part of your problem with the dropped calls due to an intermittent connection from damaged/old wires.  Hope you are back in business now.  I’m glad I was able to be of some help.  Good luck with the new Surfboard modem.

 

Eddie

 

[tomturbomatic]

The old cable had water inside it. That happened a few years ago, too, thanks to squirrels. Thank you again for the good wishes.

 

[lowefficiency]

Even if an old cordless phone lasts forever, or its batteries are still available, anyone still using one might still want to consider replacing it.

The older phones, and many "not-THAT-old" cordless phones used analog radios with no scrambling or anything to prevent eavesdropping. Many either overlapped the AM radio bands, or were close enough that just a common radio (such as a car parked in the street) could be tuned far enough on the dial to listen to your phone calls.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

I wish they'd operate like your cell as in instantly recording calls coming in, missed and going out...

Not something I manually have to program, I would never want to give up my land line...

-- Dave

 

[gusherb]

I have a few Panasonic DECT cordless phone sets with the eco and extended range feature and they will work all the way down the street at the corner 700' away from the house. The call clarity is almost as good as a corded phone too. I bought those probably about 10 years ago now and will just keep them around until they quit as we don't really use the "landline" anymore. I just keep some VoIP ATA's active on cheap service so my Bell System phones aren't just a mere table decoration and the cordless phones are used for the modern conveniences of caller ID and mobility around the house.

Our first cordless phone was a Uniden from the mid 90s that was about the size of a brick, was analog and ran on 900 mhz. It had pretty decent range and it survived a swim in the pool a couple times and still works to this day.