Cordless Phone Frequencies
Cordless phones sold in the USA today are 900 MHz, 1.9 GHz, 2.4 GHz, or 5.8 GHz frequency bands. Prior to 1994 cordless phones used much lower frequencies, which could be easily picked up by radio scanners. Yes your call on a cordless phone back then could be overheard. 900 Mhz cordless phones were introduced around 1994. The 2.4 Ghz phones were introduced in 1998 and the 5.8 Ghz in 2003. In 2005 the 1.9 Ghz frequency band (called DECT 6.0) was allocated in the USA for cordless phones.
DECT 6.0
Digital European Cordless Telecommunications, or DECT, is a digital communication standard, which is primarily used for cordless phones. DECT 6.0 is the USA standard and is considered more secure than the other frequencies because they shared the band with other devices. For example the 2.4 Ghz frequency (as well as the 5.8 Ghz) is commonly used by wifi routers, wireless mice and keyboards as well as other devices.
The term DECT 6.0 is not a frequency but is said to be a marketing term for DECT cordless phones made for use in the USA. Manufacturers decided that since DECT 6.0 operates at 1.9 GHz, and 1.9 is a lower number than the current highest cordless phone frequency in use of 5.8 Ghz, that the public might not equate the lower number with an improvement! So leave it up to the marketing people to add the 6.0 tag onto the DECT so consumers would believe that 6.0 was the next step above 5.8.
In addition to being more secure, the DECT 6.0 phones are more energy efficient, having more "talk time" before the battery needs recharging. Longer range and call clarify is another benefit of a DECT 6.0 cordless phone.
