DECT and cordless phones for business

Both, and this is the question that confuses people most.

DECT describes the radio link between the handset in your hand and its base station. VoIP describes how the call travels once it reaches the base station. A business DECT system is a VoIP phone: the base station plugs into your network, registers to your phone system exactly as a desk phone does, and the handset is simply a cordless extension of it.

So a DECT handset does everything a desk phone does. It has an extension number, it takes transfers, it goes on hold, it does intercom, it appears in the directory. The person holding it is on your phone system, not on a separate cordless phone in the corner.

The cordless phone you buy in a shop is a different thing. That plugs into a phone socket and serves one line. It is not part of a business system and it cannot transfer a call to anybody.

This is where published numbers mislead people, so here is the honest version.

Outdoors, with line of sight, a handset can work up to roughly 300 metres from its base station. That is the number on the box. Indoors it is far less, and the manufacturer's own figure for a base station with an external antenna is about 50 metres inside a building.

The reason is simply what the signal has to pass through. Plasterboard costs you a little. Brick, concrete, steel racking, cool rooms, lift shafts and foil backed insulation cost you a lot. A warehouse full of stacked stock is a harder environment than an empty one, which is why coverage measured on a quiet Sunday can disappoint on a Monday.

So the range that matters is the range in your building, not the range on the datasheet. For anything larger than a small office we would rather walk the site than guess.

Two different limits, and people usually only ask about the first one.

Handsets per base station is how many phones you can register. A small business base station typically takes a handful. Larger systems take dozens per base station, and hundreds across a multi cell installation.

Simultaneous calls per base station is how many of those handsets can be on a call at the same time through that one base. It is a smaller number, and it is the one that bites. A base station with ten handsets registered but a lower simultaneous call limit is fine in an office where two people are ever on the phone at once, and not fine in a call centre.

If several people in the same area are regularly on calls together, that changes the design, so it is worth saying so before anything is quoted.

Three ways to answer a call away from a desk, and they suit different problems.

DECT is its own radio network on its own band. It is the most reliable of the three for voice inside a building, because nothing else is competing for the airtime and the system was designed for calls and nothing else.

Wifi handsets use the network you already have. That sounds cheaper until you count what good voice coverage over wifi actually requires. A network built for laptops is not automatically a network that carries a call cleanly while somebody walks between access points.

Mobiles work anywhere with coverage, which is their whole advantage, and they are not on your phone system unless you add something to put them there. They also cost per handset per month, forever, and staff turnover means reassigning them.

Most sites end up with a mix. The question is which one belongs where, not which one wins.

Prices are on each product page. We do not take orders through this website. Tell us the building and how many people need a handset, and we will quote it, including installation, with the phones and the work priced separately rather than rolled together.

For the Yealink cordless range specifically, which models suit which job and what the letters after the model number mean, see Yealink phones. There is also a detailed review of the W73P cordless system, which is the one most small sites end up with.