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Ask HN: Why no mobile phone can also be used as a DECT phone?

2 points by _trampeltier ↗ HN
I just wonder since a long time, why no mobile phone also can be used as a DECT phone. Wouldn't it be nice to connect with your companys mobile phone to your companys DECT phone network. Now I have to carry my companys DECT phone and the companys mobile phone around. It can't be that hard to do it. Also the hardware is from different companys, so it's not "we can sell 2 phones". So why nobody does it?

5 comments

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1e10
What is DECT?
_trampeltier
Just a normal cordels phone at home or in a company. These days they almost all use DECT as standart for communication.
Gibbon1
I think DECT uses narrow band GFSK modulation. And on a different set of bands than cellular. So I think quite a bit different radio design. I think now days you could make it work. But the answer is probably in you comment that cell phones and DECT phones are made by different companies.
mytailorisrich
This would require a DECT RF, baseband, and stack module in your mobile phone.

That's way too niche for anyone to spend developing on special mobile phone model for that, and it would make no point to integrate this by default.

You could have a picocell so that you could connect your mobile phone to your company's phone network. I believe that there are a few such products on the market.

The 'good' solution is not to bother with a DECT phone and to simply route everything to your company mobile phone.

Someone
There were dual DECT/GSM phones (Ericsson OnePhone; I don’t know whether there were others. See http://www.dectweb.com/News&Views/Features/9906Dectweb.htm)

That was around the year 2000, though, when it wasn’t clear that GSM would be as ubiquitous as it is now (if it were, those phones would have been named GSM/DECT phones, I think)

Nowadays, I think the easier solution would be to have your phone call over the company’s WiFi network. It wouldn’t be surprising if there were solutions that would give callers the illusion your mobile had two numbers, so that your caller ID shows your ‘landline’ number when you’re calling from your office.