Determine if Your Wi-Fi Is Interfering With Your Cordless Phone

If you experience problems with the quality of the calls on your cordless phone, you may have your home Wi-Fi to thank for that interference.

Wi-Fi and Cordless Phones Don't Play Well Together

Wireless household appliances such as microwave ovens, cordless telephones, and baby monitors can interfere with Wi-Fi wireless network radio signals. However, Wi-Fi signals can generate interference in the other direction, to certain types of cordless phones. Positioning a Wi-Fi router too close to a cordless phone base station can result in degraded voice quality on the cordless phone.

This problem does not occur with all cordless phone base stations. It is most likely to occur when the cordless phone and the Wi-Fi router both operate on the same radio frequency. For example, a router and base station that both operate on the 2.4 GHz band are most likely to interfere with each other.

The Solution

If you are having an interference problem with your cordless phone, the solution is as simple as increasing the distance between your home router and the phone's base station.

Although many routers allow for channel-changing, not many cordless phone manufacturers specify the frequency at which their phones operate. So although changing the channel of your 2.4 GHz router may help, you'll be flying blind as to the ideal channel to select.

You'll also find value, if you can, in ensuring that your cordless phone system and your Wi-Fi router operate on different frequencies. Modern Wi-Fi routers, for example, use the 5.0 GHz band, which will not interfere with your 2.4 GHz cordless phones.